Awesome Movie!

Rating: 9/10 (24 October 2018)

Donnie Darko is one of the most sincerely abstract films I have personally seen. After watching this film nothing really comes to mind as comparable, but it is unmistakably riveting trying to make sense of its insatiable bizarreness. Following Donnie, a woefully disturbed teenager plagued with what seems to be a tendency for schizophrenic episodes, we bear witness to his unsettling thoughts & hallucinations of a semi-imaginary figure known as Frank. Emphasizing "semi-imaginary", Frank is grown man in a grotesquely disturbing bunny rabbit costume that is representative of the scarring imagery of childhood nightmares, or for that matter adult nightmares. Frank is seemingly out to harm Donnie as we see from the uncivil acts he persuades him to commit. But, was his corruptive persuasion really just guidance? Throughout the film Donnie is struck with feelings reflective of the infinitesimal boundaries of his existence, and is left, as we are, to come to terms with our place amongst the immensity of the universe. The film further draws upon mystifying questions related to the flow of time, and how it appears to position us within it limits and nothing more. But, the ending of Donnie Darko leaves one obsessing over the nature of time & existence. How do we relate to the universe? Do any of us as individuals really earn the right to say we are significant compared to anyone else? Does god exist? Donnie Darko does not provide any answers to any of these questions, but it is thrilling in its presentation of them.