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Donnie Darko
20:26 Mar 19 2011
Times Read: 515


What if you could go back in time..?

Take all those hours of pain and darkness.. and replace them with something better..



First I would like to summarize the movie. It’s a short version of the events in the movie. It won’t give you a full picture, but an overall look of what the movie is about.



Donnie Darko is a teenager who wakes up one night by a voice telling him the strange message that in 28 days, 6 hours, 42 minutes and 12 seconds the world is going to end. After that a series of events unfold where he discovers the identity behind the voice, a rabbit named Frank, and where Donnie is being influenced by it to undertake certain actions. A countdown starts and what will happen after the clock hits zero is up to you to find out..











Next I would like to give you my opinion on the movie, the things I’ve noticed and the conclusions I drew.. This part will contain specific reference to the movie, in other words spoilers. If you haven’t seen the movie yet, I suggest you stop reading here, come back later when you’ve watched it and see whether you came to the same conclusions.





Donnie Darko is a complex movie. I expected it to be a scifi horror scenario, but it was far from that. Although there are elements of fiction in it that are mainly discussed, I would rather classify this as a drama. But that’s just my opinion. I discovered so many things when watching it and it never let go of my interest..





The movie is actually one big flash forward. Kind of like when people have a flashback of their life minutes before they die, Donnie has a flash forward of the life he could have had.., the people he would have known and influenced and situations he would have been in up to 28 days after his death.





Notice the first date..October 2nd 1988.. For those who watched the movie carefully, will see this date appear again later on in the movie.. In fact, this is actually the real beginning. It’s the moment from which the actual flash forward starts..



Donnie hears a voice that makes him wake up and go outside his house where he sees the rabbit that tells him the world is going to end. A few moments later a jet engine falls out of the sky, straight into Donnie’s bedroom.. He then wakes up on a golf course and when he gets home, he sees the giant engine being pulled out of his house. Notice the small relief of the family when they see him and realize he is okay..



Back at school you see how the principal walks past two teenagers that are doing drugs, catches a glimpse of them, but doesn’t notice anything.. How ironic, don’t you think? To think so many things happen around us without us even noticing it..



The fast forward through the school with all of it’s activity ends with the song words ‘funny how time flies’..



Side note: I would love to have that teacher for English class…She seems to have really interesting perspectives and I find Donnie’s answer to her question worth thinking over.



When the teacher asks Gretchen to choose a seat next to the boy she finds the cutest, she is mearly trying to read the new girl by her choices, which I find a very smart move.



Again, the disinterest of the family in Donnie’s life is proven by the fact his own dad doesn’t even know the name of the therapist Donnie is going to.. As a dad, who has probably arranged the meetings between the two, you should expect him to know at least the name. Which adds to the conclusion his parents probably don’t even go to the therapist to check on their son’s progress..



And then we meet the interesting persona, Grandma Death, or Roberta Sparrow as she will be called later on in the movie. Her and Donnie develop an interesting relationship and I knew from the moment he saw her go to her mail box and open it only to find it empty that Donnie was going to write her later on in the movie.



Side Note: I do not know whether the two are connected, but the mail box reminds me of the movie ‘The Lake House’ where a woman from the near future (Sandra Bullock) communicates through letters in a mail box with a man that lives in the near past (Keanu Reeves). It bares a resemblance..



Grandma Death tells him one sentence.. ‘Every living creature on earth dies alone.' Which is true, but only for the act of dying itself, not necessarily for the life that proceeds it..



Later on, when Donnie tells his therapist this and she asks him whether he feels alone right now, he tells her he likes to believe he is not, but that he just never has seen any proof (which can be traced back to the disinterest of his own family and the fact that noone really seems to understand him).



Interesting how Donnie’s aswer to ‘the greatest invention ever to benefit mankind’ seems to be antiseptics. He backs it up with some pretty amazing facts and then Gretchen destroys a potentially great essay by plainly asking if he meant ‘soap’. Lol interesting how human relations influence one another..not necessarily in the way we intend to.



Following scenario: Donnie has to decide whether the example he has received from the teacher (a girl finds a wallet and returns it to the owner, but after she has taken the money out of it) is categorized as fear or love and has to put an x on the lifeline. When you read the situation he received, you come to the same conclusion he does. Most things can’t be categorized into two simple things. As Donnie says, we don’t know the entire story and life isn’t that simple. Therefore it isn’t right..



Funny how people tend to do that in real life all the time without even realizing it..We have prejudices, we judge, we categorize,.. without even knowing the entire situation.. Sometimes just basing it on one aspect or event… Or worse, we choose the one thing that will prove our theory and deny the existence of everything else.. And somehow, we tell ourselves what we do is right, and that our conclusion is right. Not even bothering to look further or see the entire truth.



Side Note: I find it soo ironic he later on finds the wallet of Jim Cunningham, the person who’s theories Donnie describes as lies. I smiled when I watched that scene thinking how life is complicated and yet so simple at times. Made me think about destiny..



The first real scifi element in the movie are the vessels or so called spears that travel ahead of present time indicating a person’s will to go or do something in the future. It marks the path that person is going to walk. Later on Donnie discusses it with his teacher telling him everything follows a set path and if God controls time, then all time is predecided (indicating the existence of destiny or faith). The teacher responds: “ If we would be able to see our destinies manifest themselves visually, then we would be given a choice to betray our chosen destinies. And the mere fact that this choice exists would make all preformed destiny come to an end.”



This made me think as I don’t really know what to believe.. I think each person has a destiny, a certain path to walk, but that path changes with each choice we make, giving us a million possibilities and therefore no ‘true’ destiny... So you can say both Donnie and the teacher have valid points. And that it’s up to you to decide which one you prefer..



Side Note: The Infant Memory Generators in the movie is an idea taken from the book ‘Brave New World’ by Aldous Huxley where he presents a world where babies are conditioned to become whatever society needs them to become. Kind of like a predestined destiny.



Another thing I noticed..Gretchen doesn’t want to kiss Donnie in the park because she wants to wait for the moment that will remind her of how beautiful the world can be. And yet their first kiss is immediately after a class mate has pointed out to her her stepdad has stabbed her mum.. Maybe she appreciated the fact that Donnie was concerned and ran after her to see whether she was okay, but I thought that timing was weird, to say the least.



Later on Donnie and Gretchen go to the movies and while Gretchen falls asleep, Frank appears. Donnie asks him why he wears that stupid bunny suit and Frank replies: “Why are you wearing that stupid man suit?"



This could indicate the desire humans sometimes have to be someone else or they don’t like who they are at all. Maybe try to pretend to be in someone else’s suit..



Almost at the end, Donnie goes to Roberta Sparrow’s house and get’s attacked by a guy who asks him if he called the police, his response is ‘Deus Ex Machina’.



Side Note: This phrase indicates the use of a devine intervention in Greek plays whenever the author didn’t find a solution to fix a situation or the tragedy didn’t meet the requirements of place, time and action. (Meaning a play needed to take place in one place, within 24 hours, containing one single action). An actor playing God would be lowered on stage to provide the solution if the author couldn’t think of something else. Deus Ex Machina literally means God out of the Machine in Latin.



This could indicate the lack of ideas to finish the movie Donnie Darko and therefore the use of an ‘intervention’, such as the police, would provide the solution.



After this the movie is kind of being placed in rewind, showing scenes from the movie in a reverse order. It is going back to the moment where Donnie Darko wakes up. But instead of going downstairs, like he did the first time, you see him laughing and then go back to sleep..



Notice the date... October 2nd 1988..



He knows what is going to happen, both in the near future as well as the further future. In a sense you could say he actually experienced the time travelling he has been looking for the entire movie..



Why did he choose to accept his faith and not alter it? Why did he choose to deny himself the future? The chance to get to know new people, influence them, experience new things and emotions,.. Why did he choose to deny himself life?



His letter to Roberta Sparrow is the answer..



Dear Roberta Sparrow, I have reached the end of your book and... there are so many things that I need to ask you. Sometimes I'm afraid of what you might tell me. Sometimes I'm afraid that you'll tell me that this is not a work of fiction. I can only hope that the answers will come to me in my sleep. I hope that when the world comes to an end, I can breathe a sigh of relief, because there will be so much to look forward to..





So here is a question for you..





What if you could go back in time..?



Take all those hours of pain and darkness.. and replace them with something better..



Would you deny people the chance to get to know you?



To be influenced by you?



To love you?





Would you?