What the hell happened?

Rating: 10/10 (16 March 2020)

It's hard to describe. The film has many layers and a spice of uncertainty about what's real and what isn't.
If I go with analyzing Donnie's character - he's antibullshit. He doesn't believe that life can be linearly defined and understood like his teacher tries to do. Ms. Farmer, on the other hand, tries to believe in the illusion that if you live a life, abiding certain pre-set principles that bring you closer to love than to fear, you will salvaged.
It's clear from the beginning that Donnie goes to therapy. This is because he sees a giant Bunny-Rabbit: Frank from the future. Frank tells him when the world will end. Well, perhaps this means when Donnie will die, because our death is the end of the world for us. He has 28 days.
The real question here is whether Donnie ever lived. What threw me off was the fact that Gretchen didn't recognize Donnie Darko. Gretchen also died, but if Donnie never lived, she wouldn't have died, neither would Frank, or anyone else. The school wouldn't get burned, the airplane that would crash into their house would be coming out of nowhere and his mum and sister wouldn't be into it.
This film resembles THE BUTTERFLY EFFECT, the second ending where the character realizes that the world would be right if he wasn't born at all. Not that Donnie isn't born - but he dies before all hell can break loose. To me he becomes the sacrifice of time so that people don't suffer. He was just a wrong breed.
And what Donnie accomplished was to build a time machine. Through this time machine he went back and slept through the crash and let himself die.