On the occasion of the twentieth anniversary of ‘Donnie Darko’, Arthaus spared no effort in September 2021 to bring the magnificent science fiction drama in a restored version – for the first time, by the way – on the big screens in this country. This, of course, was a real boon for the countless fans of the cult film. Whose masterpiece Richard Kelly However, if you still haven’t seen it, you can correct this faux pas today, January 28 at 10:10 PM on Tele 5 – It is worth it!
That’s what ‘Donnie Darko’ is about
Middlesex, a small American suburb in the 1980s: this is where Donnie Darko (Jake Gyllenhaal) lives, who at first glance seems like a completely normal teenager. But Donnie is a sleepwalker and keeps having surreal visions. Despite psychotherapy and ever-increasing medication treatment, the young man finds himself somewhere different in the small town every morning. One night he hears a menacing voice for the first time, which he follows to the local golf course.
There he meets Frank, a man in a rabbit costume and a scary rabbit mask. The suspicious apparition gives him an exact time that predicts the end of the world. When Donnie returns to his parents’ house the next morning, he encounters numerous onlookers gathered in his yard. An airplane’s turbine has inexplicably crashed into Donnie’s room. Did the scary rabbit save his life or is this just the beginning of the end?
An exciting masterpiece about time travel
Many films have already dealt with the extremely interesting subject of time travel. However, with ‘Donnie Darko’ we can expect one of the most exciting approaches to this complex, which cannot be scientifically understood without paradoxes. In the official FILMSTARTS review, Richard Kelly’s debut work received an excellent 4.5 out of 5 stars. The conclusion is:
“’Donnie Darko’ is an interesting, disturbing film that demands interpretation and will only appeal to those willing to pick up the puzzle pieces of the story themselves and put them together again and again.”
Even though the term seems a bit overused since Christopher Nolan’s ‘Inception’, “Donnie Darko” is one of those films that can be described as a mind fuck without any ifs or buts. The countless interpretation options that Richard Kelly offers his audience create a unique film experience in which viewers can always discover and take away something different. This is vaguely reminiscent of the cinema of David Lynch (“Lost Highway”), as “Donnie Darko” does not offer an ultimate solution either.
A visionary cult film
In the criticism, this circumstance is described as follows: “When considering the possible variants of interpretation, the question of time travel is the first that comes to mind as a hinge point. According to this interpretation, Donnie is ordered by an anonymous force to close a tangent universe created by the airplane turbine’s time travel for an unknown reason. […] Likewise, everything can be understood as guided by a divine master plan, which becomes clear to Donnie through the revelation of the transparent arrows that grow from people’s upper bodies and show them the way.
What’s admirable about ‘Donnie Darko’ is that, despite its diverse content, it never comes across as cerebral or academic. Ultimately, we are dealing with a moving old age story in which a young man must deal with the mortality of all beings – and discover for the first time what it means to be in love. When Jules Gray’s new version of Tears for Fears’ ‘Mad World’ comes on at the end, it is simply extremely moving and really sums up the film perfectly.