Saturday, October 2, 2004

Sounds like a superhero or something... There have been three threads about Donnie Darko on OtakuBoards and I'm not sure if I posted in any of them. (And I should warn you, before you go any further, that there might be spoilers in this post.) I remember looking at the largest thread and finding it a little disappointing. A few people were picking up some strands and noting some important things, but mostly, that movie just wasn't being appreciated. I think the low point came when someone said something like "oh man I need to get that bunny suit for Halloween". That comment would be fine, if it wasn't the only thing the member in question said. Donnie Darko is a lot like The Matrix. It was a movie that, when critiqued in America, was largely misunderstood. Many American critics (moreso than in Britain), viewed it as a kind of "car crash of a film, with no point". In the same way that Donnie Darko was called a car crash with no point, The Matrix was erroneously labeled as a special effects extravaganza, with a wafer-thin plot that merely attempts to appear philosophical. I have actually gone to some length here on myOtaku to actually explain several points about The Matrix; points that I feel most people in the audience miss. And I've explained why I think they miss them and why it's kind of inevitable in some ways. Donnie Darko is essentially no more complicated than The Matrix, but it is complicated and unlike The Matrix, it's not supported by cool action sequences and funky costumes. Therefore, the cool reception by many critics might be understandable. My question is, what makes these people professional movie critics? Surely it's your job to try to understand the film -- or at least, to recognize that there's something there, but you don't necessarily understand it. I had a long discussion with one of my colleagues at N-Sider about Donnie Darko the other day. I told him that it reminded me of The Matrix (both due to its critical reception, as well as its indirect nihlist elements). I half expected him to say "Yeah, but the fight scene in Reloaded had shitty effects" or some other such superficial comment. Instead, he started to make many of the same points that I'd made about those films. He actually understood the multiple aspects involved in the Oracle's conversation with Neo, in Reloaded. He understood the Oracle's dual role, the sheer irony of her telling Neo the absolute truth on the one hand, but him not being in a position to understand that truth (and therefore, allowing the process to unfold). And so much more besides. In the same way that The Matrix deserves to be understood, Donnie Darko not only deserves your attention, but also the effort to dig a little deeper. The fact that both movies were met with similar reactions (in many quarters) somehow seems to say more about the way audiences work (or what levels of complexity they are willing to take), rather than saying anything about the qualitative nature of the films (in terms of whether they suck or not). I've seen Donnie Darko three times. Once was ages ago...the second time was on Wednesday. And the third time was tonight; I watched it with my mum. She'd only seen fifteen minutes of it before and she'd lost interest. Now, generally, she's not "one of those people" who will fall asleep during a movie that goes over their head. In fact, I have my most mind-bending Matrix conversations with her -- she's very interested in discussing those things at length. The first time I saw the movie, I thought it was good. Just good. I had a basic idea of what it was trying to tell me, but I honestly didn't understand it to its fullest extent (and I still don't). Much like The Matrix trilogy, it required multiple viewings to truly appreciate. It also required a little reading after the fact (which is what I've done extensively with The Matrix, in an attempt to better understand it). Before I go further, I should tell fans of the movie that you can actually view Roberta Sparrow's The Philosophy of Time Travel online, should you so desire. I can send you a link if you don't have it already. Reading the excerpts of that book will help you to understand the "spine" of Donnie Darko to a higher degree. When I say "spine", I'm talking about the more literal elements of it. In The Matrix, I'd regard the spine as the war with man and machine and man's attempts to overcome oppression (and the various twists and revelations involved). In the case of Donnie Darko, I would say that the spine relates to the concept of the "artifact" (the jet engine) and its impact on time and space (ie: the fact that it's an anomaly without explanation, which has no reason to exist and which presents a threat to the universe by its very existence). I'd also say that the spine relates to the tangent universe, where a series of events occur that ultimately result in Donnie's death (as in the "real universe", or at least, the "first universe"), but where a number of things change (the way Cunningham is uncovered and so on, but primarily, the fact that Gretchen dies and that Donnie does not die alone). In the case of both films, I don't believe that every audience member is necessarily grasping these "spines". The spines are the things that will give the viewer satisfaction, in my view. My mum was telling me that she felt that Donnie Darko was unsatisfying, because it offered no answer -- it didn't offer a sense of hope, nor did it offer a specific explanation or outcome. I think that's partly true, but still, there's at least a basic spine there that you can grasp, to give you some satisfaction about the overall film. But the spine is still a small part of it. There's so much more there. One of the things that I love about Donnie Darko is the way that it communicates several messages without being so explicit all the time. In some ways, I feel that the movie is speaking to me directly; communicating with me in a way that isn't necessarily tangible, where I can't necessarily put that dialogue into words. Does that make sense? It's like...having a universal understanding between you and your soul mate. You can't necessarily put it into words and you can't necessarily describe the dialogue that is going on between the both of you. But you can feel it, and you can completely empathize with that person, even if the language itself isn't quite clear. I think that Donnie Darko has several of those moments. The running thread about an apathetic system, which doesn't address real issues (ie: the teacher and her passion for the whole "fear versus love" tripe), the thread about the cynical manipulation of more complex issues (Cunningham's attempt to "cash in" by over-analyzing issues and playing on people's fears, whilst he simultaneously profits and manages to indulge in child pornography all at the same time). Although there are literal aspects to all of these things, there's also a kind of unspoken communication...a kind of acknowledgement. It's as if the writer is saying "We've both seen this and we both understand it -- I can feel what you can feel." That type of experience is something that very few movies have ever given me. It's really refreshing and it shows a degree of thought and imagination that many movies seem to lack. I tried to explain some of these things to my mum; to explain to her why I felt that this movie was so important to watch. I told her that although I experience some frustration at not being able to answer various specific questions -- most of them literal, rather than metaphoric or otherwise -- the movie satisfies me, because I can find various threads within it that speak to me personally. For those of you who have seen Donnie Darko (and have read The Philosophy of Time Travel), I have a question for you. And I really feel that this question relates to the core of the movie in a literal sense -- it relates to the outcome and what the movie is ultimately trying to say. We have a situation where the jet engine has travelled through a portal from the tangent universe to the "real universe". At this point it is known as an "artifact", as in, it has no reason to exist in the "real universe". Its very existence apparently threatens everything (all universes) and will result in the end of all things. Frank comes along and saves Donnie from the crash. By keeping Donnie alive, he's able to order him to do specific things. So, Donnie floods the school, which allows him to go out with Gretchen. He finds the wallet, which allows him to know which house to burn down. The house burns down, which reveals Cunningham's child porn stash. Cunningham is arrested as a result and the teacher (I am forgetting her name X_X) spearheads a defense group for Cunningham rather than taking Sparkle Motion on their trip. This allows Donnie's mother to take them and this provides a reason for the jet to be flying over his house (which eliminates the fact that the jet engine has no reason to exist; the engine came from the plane that carried Donnie's mother). As well, Frank's existence and coaching of Donnie ultimately leads to Gretchen's death, which then ultimately leads Donnie back to his house where he dies too (as with the "real universe"). Now, here's what I don't understand. In the "real universe", the jet engine didn't exist as such; it came through a portal from another universe (the tangent universe, presuambly). What we saw, with Frank (the manipulated dead) and Grandma Death and others (the manipulated living), all took place in the tangent universe. My first thought was that Donnie had created an environment that would kind of create an explanation for the engine to exist in the real universe. But that isn't true -- that plane would have been flying overhead in the tangent universe, regardless of whether or not his mother had gone on the trip. So that isn't the answer. My next thought was that Donnie had somehow traveled through time and done things in a different way, in order to "merge" the two universes (and therefore to ensure that the engine was no longer an artifact and that it was, in fact, supposed to be there). But I'm not quite sure about that. My final thought was that the point of the tangent universe was that Donnie didn't die alone; that he died with Gretchen, in a sense. Remember that Donnie doesn't seem to feel a connection with other people, even his parents. He confesses to Dr. Thurman that he feels alone, or at least, we're given the sense that the only person he has a connection to (other than Gretchen) is Frank. But once Gretchen appears (and because of her own past turmoil), he manages to find a strong connection -- a fundamental empathy -- with her. Therefore, because he now has a connection with another human being, he hasn't died alone. And therefore he hasn't realized his greatest fear (which is possibly why he's laughing before he dies, in the tangent universe). Of course, in order for him to feel this way, Gretchen had to die. And that's a pretty cruel and harsh concept. In The Philosophy of Time Travel, we are told that the manipulated living will wake up and have some vague memories of what had happened in the tangent universe. That's why we see Cunningham crying and distressed at the end...and it's why we see Frank looking shocked, touching his eye. So I guess that my question relates to the end and specifically, the overriding point. I understand the various specific dynamics that are going on, but I'm having difficulty drawing them all together. Is the end goal to literally save the world? To somehow correct things in the tangent universe and therefore make things right in the real universe? I don't know. I do know that the writer had said that there were multiple "points" and multiple interpretations -- and that this was deliberate -- but on a literal, functional level, I am grappling with that point. If you've suffered through my entire post, you are amazing. ~_^ I probably won't post something this long again, but tonight, I needed to spill these thoughts out onto my little space here.

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