Donnie Darko's Death Dream

Rating: Null/10 (15 July 2003)

I've recently read a user comment about Hitch's North By Northwest based upon the several absurd situations of the movie -like chasing a man to death using a biplane- to justify a low score review. Thinking of it, I understand we just can't take the superlogical mood to watch a movie (maybe unless it was by Ken Loach), since the very most of them have asburds and necessary tricks. Otherwise, genres like Action, Thriller, Sci-Fi or Horror would be completely pointless without this "cheating". And, in the other hand, this is the same old story about putting rules to art, boxing the emotions and so.
But some of those tricks sometimes seem a bit unfair. I mean: putting the world of next-to-death dreams inside a plot (Muldholland Dr., What Dreams May Come, The Sixth Sense, Fearless) gives the story and characters absolute freedom. Similarly, focusing the facts from an out-of-order mind (Julia & Julia, American Psycho), provides the same facilities to the writer. Also virtual realities (Tron, The Matrix) are extremely useful jokers in every game. Let's say the imagination bandwith is -intentionally?- boosted when any of these resources is assumed as the initial condition to develop a fiction, since everything in the Universe would have enough room to exist inside a nightmare, an ill brain or a computer program.
***** SUBJECTIVE SPOILERS BELOW *****
Donnie Darko -imho- may be taken in two different basic ways:
1) A nightmare come true... with all that it implies.
2) A death premonitory dream.
In the first option everything is real: Donnie's visions, the rabbit, the psychologist, the school sabotage, the fire at the preacher's, the preacher himself, the car over the girl, the time warp, the plane incidents (the same only one but shown twice from different views), etc. Obviously, this is the romantic and non-realistic approach, at its top when Donnie's bravely decides to enter the reverse time warp.
The second option grows on the premonitory dream of Donnie. This may seem pretty unreal too, but think there is just one premonition within his dream: the jet engine crash. Everything from this very point may easily be taken just as the threaded subsequent -agonic- dream; everything takes sense in this environment, as mentioned above. After the 1,5 hours dream lapse, reality retakes the scene to show the sad results of the disaster (actual people in actual situation).
But, even this only premonition doesn't need to be a premonition at all: assuming Donnie, asleep, could hear for sure the loud noise of a turbojet getting too damn near and, then, dream of the crash right before it actually happens (don't you ever dream with cops and robbers while the TV plays a siren sound?). This last consideration makes this second hypothesis my favourite. Anyway, you can find lots of hints of this being the right look, for example the mother and little sister "surviving" the accidented flight... just because they never took that jet.
In both cases, Donnie is the most sane and clever subject around; no matter he's a victim of Beyond experiences or just a very cohesive last-minute dreamer.
An very interesting movie, not suitable for easy watchers.
A P.S. question for the heavy staff: if you support the dream idea, who is the actual Frank? A friend? And the preacher? A relative? (Who cares?)