Donnie Darko

Samcanuck

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Nov 26, 2009
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I just got through watching Donny Darko. (With the kid from October Sky and others like Drew Barrymore).

What I want to know is what you got from it. And honestly, the deeper the better, because their are a lot of meanings to interpret. I want to know what you learned from it.

{I recognize that the movie can take on different meanings everytime you watch it. Really is up to your mind set at the time. But if this movie has effected you, and brought inspiration to better understand the concepts, questions and idea's presented in the movie...I wish to learn more from you}
 

delet

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Nov 2, 2008
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Hmmm... I remember it being an amazing movie, and that I watched it 5+ times, but ... I think I'm going to have to watch it again to remember what meaning I got from it. It's been a good 2 or 3 years since I watched it last >.<
 

Lord Krunk

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Mar 3, 2008
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It was an awesome movie. But honestly, I resent interpreting anything beyond their face value.
 

Mookie_Magnus

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Jan 24, 2009
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I learned not to play with the alternate timelines... Otherwise airplane engines will fall through your roof and kill you.

Also, don't trust a one-eyed man in a bunny suit.
 

Samcanuck

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Aby_Z said:
Hmmm... I remember it being an amazing movie, and that I watched it 5+ times, but ... I think I'm going to have to watch it again to remember what meaning I got from it. It's been a good 2 or 3 years since I watched it last >.<
I like your answer.
 

Thegreyfox666

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Oct 11, 2009
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Movie was amazing and quite honestly fucked up, but I'm too drunk ATM to take anything from it. :(
 

LiquidGrape

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Sep 10, 2008
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It's an ambitious, enjoyable little romp.
Though it does suffer from delusions of Lynchesque closure.

The night before the jet engine crashes through the roof, the camera deliberately lingers on a scene where Donnie takes his medication, despite his previous attempts to avoid it.
At a later stage in the film, just before the "timeline" goes full circle, Donnie is shot in the exact same outfit, laughing uncontrollably.
Perhaps the whole ordeal, in the fashion of American Psycho before it, is nothing but a psychoneurotic reaction to his medicaments.
 

BonsaiK

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Nov 14, 2007
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Samcanuck said:
I just got through watching Donny Darko. (With the kid from October Sky and others like Drew Barrymore).

What I want to know is what you got from it.
When someone dies, assuming that their cranium is more or less intact, there comes a point where the brain realises (subconsciously) that it is using up resources for no good purpose - that it cannot "save itself" from death. The remaining resources that the brain has in terms of electrical energy which would normally used to send adrenalin, warning signals (pain), etc are not wasted (the brain doesn't know how to do this) but instead used to make death meaningful to our conscious mind and to give pleasure. This explains the "white light" scenario that people get when they are dead or nearly dead in hospital and then revived. Except in the cases of people harboring immense guilt, nearly everyone reports a pleasurable experience. Deeply religious people generally get an experience pertaining to their specific religion (typically either entering heaven or hell). People who are hedonistic, atheist or unsure about spiritual matters in general typically also get a good experience but a 'different' one.

In Donnie Darko, the boy dies very early on in the film. Notice how his family are basically unfriendly toward him in the first few minutes of the film? Then notice how after the time when the meteor hits the house their behaviour changes for no specific reason and people everywhere around him suddenly become more helpful and supportive? At this point, Donnie is dead and he is reimagining an idealised version of his life. As time passes his fantasy deepens but also begins to unravel in weird ways and eventually completely logically collapses as his brain runs out of juice to power the fantasy (in reality it would all happen quicker than it does in the film, given the circumstances of his death). References to what really happened start creeping in. Eventually everything unravels and implodes as his brain gives out (depicted through some very fast montage) and the last few shots of the film detail what actually happened after the meteor hit the house from the perspective of other people.

I thought the film was reasonable, a similar if inferior concept to some of David Lynch's better works, who also deals in highly delusionary narratives that take a bit of figuring out.
 

Goldeneye103X2

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Jun 29, 2008
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Its a very weird movie, but also my favorite movie ever, and I've seen A LOT of movies. The reason I like it so much is because it takes its audience as an intelligent one, it doesn't give you the answers, it just gives you puzzle pieces, and you have to figure it out. My theory is that...
when donnie got out of his bed and went to frank, he cheated death, and by avoiding the supposed timeline, he created a tangent universe, which couldn't support itself because it wasn't determined. The reason Donnie was able to listen to frank was because frank was a manipulated dead from the already collapsed but then forming universe.
 

Drof

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Apr 17, 2009
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I absouloutly adore Donnie Darko It's definatly in my top 5 faviroute films but as to what I got from it, It's interesting but I didn't really accept any new theory's from it I just like the way the overall tone of the film is like a dream sequence [ reminded me of a really odd summer I had ]
 

Jharry5

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Nov 1, 2008
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It's been a while since I last watched it, but I remember thinking it was a clever film that I really enjoyed.
As for what I got out of it, though, I'm not so sure. I've seen it interpretated in a number of ways - my own interpretation is it being:
is probably a simplistic view, but the whole of the film after the first time the engine falls into his room is nothing more than an affect of his schizophrenia.
I think part of why I enjoy it is because of how there is more than one interpretation of it.

BonsaiK said:
When someone dies, assuming that their cranium is more or less intact, there comes a point where the brain realises (subconsciously) that it is using up resources for no good purpose - that it cannot "save itself" from death. The remaining resources that the brain has in terms of electrical energy which would normally used to send adrenalin, warning signals (pain), etc are not wasted (the brain doesn't know how to do this) but instead used to make death meaningful to our conscious mind and to give pleasure. This explains the "white light" scenario that people get when they are dead or nearly dead in hospital and then revived. Except in the cases of people harboring immense guilt, nearly everyone reports a pleasurable experience. Deeply religious people generally get an experience pertaining to their specific religion (typically either entering heaven or hell). People who are hedonistic, atheist or unsure about spiritual matters in general typically also get a good experience but a 'different' one.

In Donnie Darko, the boy dies very early on in the film. Notice how his family are basically unfriendly toward him in the first few minutes of the film? Then notice how after the time when the meteor hits the house their behaviour changes for no specific reason and people everywhere around him suddenly become more helpful and supportive? At this point, Donnie is dead and he is reimagining an idealised version of his life. As time passes his fantasy deepens but also begins to unravel in weird ways and eventually completely logically collapses as his brain runs out of juice to power the fantasy (in reality it would all happen quicker than it does in the film, given the circumstances of his death). References to what really happened start creeping in. Eventually everything unravels and implodes as his brain gives out (depicted through some very fast montage) and the last few shots of the film detail what actually happened after the meteor hit the house from the perspective of other people.

I thought the film was reasonable, a similar if inferior concept to some of David Lynch's better works, who also deals in highly delusionary narratives that take a bit of figuring out.
I have to say, this is a very interesting interpretation of it. I never thought of it like that.
 

Cpt_Oblivious

Not Dead Yet
Jan 7, 2009
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Interpret it?
It's just a film, mate. A clever, strange one, but still just a film.
Lord Krunk said:
-snip snip snip blah blah blah-
Your avatar has made me want to play Psychonauts again. Thank you for curing my boredom.
 

Angerwing

Kid makes a post...
Jun 1, 2009
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Smurfette is a WHORE!

But seriously, it's a mindscrew. I think it's a very odd take on time-travel, and it seems to have paradoxes, but it doesn't. It's confusing to comprehend, especially if you do it off of memory.
 

SmartIdiot

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Feb 10, 2009
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One of my favourite movies. I learned from it that if a guy in a creepy rabbit costume tells me the world is going to end, do as he says.
 

ingsoc

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Feb 12, 2008
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Donnie Darko is my absolute favorite movie of the last decade. The standard version is far superior to the directors cut which is the version for those that can't or won't think. I picked it up upon its release on DVD bay back in 2002/03 without knowing anything about it. I had just read a bunch of excerpts from Brief History of Time which certainly helped.
 

LongLiveourMachine

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Apr 4, 2009
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I'm sorry but I don't think Donnie Darko was that great of film. Infact it's pretty shallow, I mean the whole theme of the movie is basically destiny(dumb luck), you could get that of a fortune cookie. And another problem I had with it is that there's no reason for the main charater to be crazy or go crazy, he has a seemingly normal life, if you don't count his hallucinations, but then all had to do was take his pills or have somebody make him take his pills, and he even then he still somehow got a girlfriend. That's better than what I've done. Donnie Darko is by no means a bad film, It's just too pretentious and full of it's self. There are so many other movies (like Taxi Driver or fight club) that are deeper than Donnie Darko.