Philosophical Snake Oil

Rating: Null/10 (14 September 2004)

Why is it that as a society, the high brow amongst us become giddy with excitement when they discover something they don't understand, but believe that meaning within that something must exist.
Donnie Darko is a film that throws out metaphors, symbolism, iconography, and semiotics like a garage sale. Everything is just thrown onto trestle tables for the neighborhood to pick over,take what they want, and discard the rest.
The major flaw is that the film was written and directed by the same individual. It strikes me that Richard Kelly should have handed the reigns to the adults. Everything had an off kilter cartoony element to it, not quite of our world. It reminded me a little of a Steinbeck novel. Where all the characters are stereotypical constructs of an author who has limited practical knowledge of the world and its base elements. The film seems to be a pastiche of "The seventh sign", "The sixth Sense", and "American Beauty".
What is most galling about films like "Donnie Darko" is that the audience are so dizzy, disoriented, and torqued up that they are frightened witless to admit that they didn't follow many plot points at all. And they are then too unsure of themselves to blame a poor script, or 'happenstance' plot elements for their confusion. The pathetic witless fools try even harder to find 'hidden' meaning and hide behind the mantra "the author has left the film open to individual interpretation". Well I can interpret it for you, it goes something like this "Waffle, waffle, waffle, baffle, red herring, happenstance, twist, waffle, bible, baffle, amateur psychology, half baked scientific claptrap read at doctors waiting room from a dog-earred copy of the American Science Monitor, break in the films time continuum, waffle, more bible, simplistic cultural elements like smurfs, lifestyle gurus, the end".
What if Jackson Pollocks "Blue Poles" was simply a case of an unskilled man flicking drops of paint on a canvas and then attaching method and meaning. What if Bjork really is just an eccentric, borderline manic depressive who has no technical skill and hides behind weirdness and intrigue. And what if "Donnie Darko" is just a rambling anecdote of amateur theatrics, psychology, and philosophy hoping to hoodwink another town into buying its philosophical snake oil.