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Viewed as a psychological thriller, a lot of the action could be said to take place in the mind anyway.
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So what does Donnie Darko tell us about the apocalyptic movie genre?įor one thing, it tells us that the apocalypse does not have to happen on screen, or at all in the external world. Escher’s art is prominently featured in the movie, and the name of Donnie’s girlfriend, Gretchen Ross, inevitably brings in Goethe’s Faust, whose devil-haunted protagonist has a girlfriend of the same name. As a side note, the movie also abounds in references to literature and the visual arts – e.g. – The Extraterrestrial, American Werewolf, and Frightmare.
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It is indeed full of references to the period: The soundtrack uses a lot of 1980s music, and 1980s movies explicitly referenced in Donnie Darko include: Back to the Future, The Evil Dead, The Last Temptation of Christ, E.T. Thus, it is probably also one of the first movies ever to comment on the 1980s as a past era, from a slight distance. However, I would argue that thirteen years are not at all a typical time span for a film set in the past. One could add that Donnie Darko is also a “period” movie, in a way, since it was released in 2001 and the action takes place in 1988. It is a 1980s teen movie as much as it is a thriller with sci-fi elements. the elements of suburban life, even family life, are not simply used as a backdrop for the horror elements, but form an integral part of the story: The movie is about Donnie Darko’s coming of age as much as it is about, say, time travel. My point is that all three of these “genres” are essential to describing what the movie is about – e.g. The wormhole through which the jet engine travels back in time and creates a new timeline is a straightforward sci-fi element. The mundane, prosaic world of the uneventful suburb in which the story takes place, Donnie’s relationship with his new girlfriend, the high school scenes, and the Halloween party organized by the Darko siblings as soon as their parents leave the house, all make the movie a 1980s teen movie in the vein of The Breakfast Club, Pretty in Pink and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.ĭonnie’s visions of “Frank” and his nocturnal exploits come from the realm of psychological thrillers, and
What makes this movie successful from my point of view is its unique blend of at least three different movie genres: However, the movie has since become something of a cult classic of its genre on DVD.³ The question is, which genre are we talking about?
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As one film critic put it, “In the hypersensitive aftermath of Sept 11, the film’s distributor was understandably uncertain how to sell a film whose bizarre events are set in motion by a jet engine falling from the sky.”² Bad timing.
When it was released in October 2001, it flopped in movie theaters. George Bush won the election, and life went on.ĭonnie Darko was Richard Kelly’s first film. At the same time, Donnie Darko is not a typical “apocalyptic” movie, particularly because the predicted end of the world never happens, at least not in the conventional sense, and it is no great surprise that it doesn’t happen: The movie takes place in the past, in October 1988, shortly before the US presidential election, and we all know that the world did not end in 1988. When at the beginning of Donnie Darko a mysterious man in a rabbit costume declares that “the world will end” 1 in 28 days, this prediction inevitably sets the movie into the apocalyptic mode. Is Donnie Darko even an “apocalyptic film”? For this little talk I set out to find out.
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Some literary studies colleagues were organizing an “apocalyptic/postapocalyptic films” series in which they would introduce, show and discuss their favorite movies that fit into this genre, and I felt compelled to contribute Donnie Darko. The following is a text that I wrote as an introduction to a film screening of Donnie Darko at Gießen University in May 2013.