Donnie Darko: The Director's Cut

by Christina Lee

Christina Lee is a Doctoral candidate at Murdoch University (Western Australia) in Cinema and Cultural Studies, and teaches in these fields. Her dissertation looks at women's changing representations in contemporary youth cinema.

One of the most anticipated re-releases of 2004 has been Donnie Darko: The Director's Cut (dir. Richard Kelly) - an independent feature that became a cult phenomenon. Originally produced in 2001 and set in October 1988, Donnie Darko tells the story of a disaffected teenager who must save the universe from collapsing in on itself when the events of one tangent universe momentarily, but catastrophically, collides with another. Donnie (Jake Gyllenhaal) escapes death when a plane engine mysteriously falls from the sky and crashes into his bedroom which short-circuits the natural course of events. Guided by a six-foot rabbit named Frank (James Duval), a macabre traveler from the future, Donnie is instructed to carry out a series of increasingly violent acts to realign the space-time continuum before imminent chaos.

Donnie Darko: The Director's Cut maintains the narrative integrity of the original film, but includes four new music tracks and twenty minutes of extra footage. Donnie Darko's appeal was largely attributed to its open-endedness and ambiguity. As a result, I was apprehensive about watching an extended version that would potentially unravel the great mysteries that had made it such a compelling experience in the first place. I was greatly relieved that it did not. As with the original, the Director's Cut is a source of continued fascination and mystification that incites a second (if not more) return to the theatre.

Donnie Darko is a multi-layered narrative that broaches issues of divisive generationalism (between the elusive Generation X and Baby Boomers), (crises of) identity, and relations of power and powerlessness. The film captures 1980s conservative America as a time of pseudo-psychobabble and profitable sloganeering. It foreshadows the unease that would pockmark America throughout the 1990s with the Clinton impeachment and OJ Simpson trial - where moral bankruptcy was no longer a symbolic skeleton in the closet to be ousted. It was to be expected. The façade of an ideal society is shown in a scene which intercuts between a school concert and Donnie's arson attack. As Sparkle Motion takes to the stage to perform to Duran Duran's "Notorious", Donnie is torching the home of the self-help guru Jim Cunningham (Patrick Swayze) who is later exposed as a pedophile. It is the former that seems more sinister. With their silvery Lycra dresses and adult pouts, the dance troupe is a repulsive image of endorsed child exploitation, capitalism and excess.

Although Donnie has been diagnosed with borderline schizophrenia and is on medication, he is one of the few characters aware of the anaesthetized existence others around him are living. There is a brutal honesty to his sarcastic quips and disengagement from the wider community. He undermines the "dreamily, idyllic neighborhood, full of leaf blowers, power-walkers and double-sided refrigerators" with his skepticism.(1) After a while, we even begin to doubt his illness. As the story progresses, Donnie appears to be the only stable center while the rest of the world plunges in to insanity.

Straddling the tripartite dimensions of time, Donnie's ability to reverse events allows him to assert control but also requires him to relinquish it. The irony of Donnie Darko is that his revelations and psychological and emotional maturation are the most developed and astute of all the characters, but is also the most incomplete of journeys. Donnie is continually frustrated by being wedged between a dysfunctional past and an even more defective future. Captured in the lyrics of Mad World that features in the film: "The dreams in which I'm dying / Are the best I've ever had", it is a fitting epitaph for Donnie's final moments. It does not get any better, or worse, than this. As the ending suggests however, there is the chance to ensure that history will not repeat itself 'exactly'. Disaster can be averted but only through unselfish motivation. Hope is not completely lost.

Donnie Darko: The Director's Cut provides an intriguing interpretation of the sociopolitical milieu of modern America that is no less valid - and considerably less sermonizing - than the current news stories and documentaries that pervade our television and cinemas. In the wake of the Presidential election in the United States, its relevance comes to the forefront as a commentary of the state of the nation then and now, and chilling reminder of things to (potentially) come. As Richard Kelly commented:

And if we make it to the end of time, we may be rewarded with a fireworks display to end it all, once and for all. (2)

Notes

1. Mark Olsen. "Discovery: Richard Kelly", Film Comment, Vol. 37 (5), September-October 2001. p. 16.

2. Richard Kelly. Promotional material for Donnie Darko: The Director's Cut. May 2004.