Late to the party once again: "Donnie Darko" discussion. Open spoilers.

Cafe Society
21

Forgive the bump. First saw this tonight after Mr. Rilch found out I’d never seen it. Understood it. Didn’t like it.

Didn’t have a problem with the time travel/paradox stuff; I don’t need to understand every aspect of it to get the gist. But, any film where I realize that the main character is going die, and I say “Oh, thank Og,” is not something I want to see again. Not saying that Donnie was annoying or I wanted him to die, but I’d rather have Gretchen live. She was the only character I cared much about. And I think it’s been a while since I saw a senseless death in a movie, so I was glad it ended up not happening after all. I didn’t dislike Donnie, but I’m not a big fan of the brooding-preppy-misfit-who’s-smarter-than-all-those-donkey-excavations archetype. I’d rather hang out with Napoleon Dynamite, and that’s no joke.

Also, I kind of felt bad for the teacher who was a Cunningham groupie. It seemed to me that she got drawn into his BS because she had no control over her life…and her obsession only made everything worse for her. That’s not mitigated by her getting Barrymore fired, incidentally, because I didn’t like her much either. I did like it that she (Barrymore) was flawed and not the saintly liberal teacher, but that just makes her someone I wouldn’t like IRL, so I wasn’t terribly upset on her behalf.

I feel manipulated right now, actually, being compelled like this to look up threads about the movie and then post my impressions. The underlying theme of time travel/parallel universes/whatever was okay, but the surface themes of preppy angst and evil in a supposedly idyllic community are ones I normally avoid. The brutality in and pessimism of the film hurt my enjoyment of the paranormal aspects, much the same way that the brutality in Untamed Heart hurt my enjoyment of that film’s love story.

So I’ve seen it. I’m not sorry I’ve seen it, only because now I can understand any references to it, and now I know what all the fuss is about. But there’s no one scene that I found enjoyable, and I’m not crazy about the Gyllenhall sibs. I was glad when it was over, not because I thought it was bad, but because there’d been a payoff and I understood it and that was that. Now I’ll have to clear my brain before I watch A Raisin in the Sun, which I was recording on one machine while watching DD on another.

Also, about that commentary. Didn’t listen to it, but based on seemingly everyone concluding that the director doesn’t understand his own film, I’m thinking it must be one of two things. Either he cribbed the story from someone else and therefore can’t explain it (unlikely, because he’d have been sued by now and we’d have heard about it), or he did write it, but he just really, really sucks at explaining it. Some people write better than they talk, and he could have the same understanding of the film that the majority does, while lacking the capacity to convey it.

22

Agreed. In fact that was the reason I later watched the film.

After being puzzled by the plot, I searched and found the Director’s explanation. Sadly I’m still unsatisfied.
I think there are some fine sequences in the film and a real air of menace building throughout. But having to spend a couple of hours afterwards researching the plot takes the edge off.

I’d like to compare it to ‘2001 - A Space Odyssey’.
Both films have great music and a real atmosphere. Although there were a couple of sequences in 2001 that weren’t clear (where does Bowman go after entering the Star Gate? what can the Star Child do?), I still felt I’d got the main 2001 plot. Also the books by Clarke and the Director really helped.

Would it be heresy to say that I’d rather Donnie woke up at the end and realised he had been having hallucinations? (Perhaps caused by something that was referenced in the film, like the girl being shot…)

23

Hear, hear.
Please don’t watch the Directors Cut as it is far inferior and makes the movie even more confusing.

24

Absolutely.
That would negate everything and leave me feeling even more hollow then the original ending.

And I would like to add that the director really doesn’t understand his own movie, which I think is extremely weird.
His interpretation makes no sense whatsoever. (BTW: I had the same feeling after hearing Aranofsky’s explanation of The Fountain).
Why do these directors nowadays have to overexplain everything.
I am a great admirer of David Lynch’s attitude : I won’t explain it, see for yourself.

25

I only saw the Directer’s cut, what were the extra scenes?

26

There is some extra pseudo-science in there and the movie just doesn’t flow as well as the normal version.
Also the soundtrack has been changed in a disastrous way.

27

My conclusion was it was, like the Terminator, its a timeloop story triggered by and event in the future…

28

I saw this movie a couple-three weeks ago on cable. I understood pretty well what was going on, but came away with an overall impression of the movie as pretentious shit. Visiting the movie’s website, which was still up, greatly reinforced that opinion.

29

That was my take as well. I thought that they were telling the storyline from the point of view of a schizophrenic who was going over the edge (Donnie, though I don’t know whether it was an accurate protrayal of schizophrenia.) Since we’re seeing things from Donnie’s point of view, he really is saving the world.

He can’t see outside his own head, and he can’t separate fantasy from fact. He has no idea that almost the entire story is inside his head, and we as viewers don’t realize it either.