Donnie Darko (some things about a movie)
Apr. 14th, 2004 02:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
charloweenAfter a fun and deeply satisfying day, (involving altogether too much of the King sisters and driving back and forth to Reed's school) Meg, Grant and I watched the end of Kill Bill and all of Donnie Darko.
After we finished watching Donnie Darko, both Meg and Grant seemed to think that it was a depressing movie, I guess because of the whole fate-loop/death by jet-engine thing. I thought it wasn't a happy ending, but a good and not depressing one. Yes, the dude is dead and everyone is sad, but he was laughing when he died, and I thought it was a happy laugh.
In that ending montage, everyone was restless, disturbed by something they couldn't sense, but Donnie was the only one who knew that was going on. He knew and was comfortable with knowing. He'd had the last 4 weeks to get used to the idea that the world was going to end (and he was going to end with it), and in that time he'd learned a lot about the universe, etc. and had accepted that he was nuts. Besides, the knoweledge that time was limited probably gave him the courage to ask Gretchen out (not to mention to tell off that stupid teacher and Patrick Swazye).
After Gretchen died I'm sure he was willing and waiting for the end to come, but once he flipped back in time, I'm sure realized that a) she was alive in the past, therefore not dead in 4 weeks and b) she'd never meet him, and therefore never would be at the old woman's house to be run over in the first place.
Anything like Requiem for a Dream? Kinda, sure. Requiem was an unrelenting portrait of 4 people whose lives were destroyed by drug use. Donnie is nuts and dies at the end. Yet when Requiem ended you knew that the shit was going to keep going on and at least 3 of the 4 would be dead within a year. After Donnie Darko, when you realized that it was a total flashback-and-reset deal, it was okay. All the shit (vandalism and insanity, mostly... with a smattering of teachers getting fired and some disillusionment) that happened in the movie was undone, never to be done.
So I didn't think it was all that sad of a movie. Even without the magical reset time-travel function, Donnie died knowing how and why, knowing that a lot fewer people would get hurt (including poor Frank), and knowing that the girl he loved wouldn't be hurt by his death (or by that car that ran over her). He knew he only had 4 weeks and had a hell of a time before he died. Not bad at all.
I spent the entire movie trying to figure out where the hell I'd seen Gretchen; I checked imdb and it turns out she's in Saved!, which looks hilarious beyond hilarity.
After we finished watching Donnie Darko, both Meg and Grant seemed to think that it was a depressing movie, I guess because of the whole fate-loop/death by jet-engine thing. I thought it wasn't a happy ending, but a good and not depressing one. Yes, the dude is dead and everyone is sad, but he was laughing when he died, and I thought it was a happy laugh.
In that ending montage, everyone was restless, disturbed by something they couldn't sense, but Donnie was the only one who knew that was going on. He knew and was comfortable with knowing. He'd had the last 4 weeks to get used to the idea that the world was going to end (and he was going to end with it), and in that time he'd learned a lot about the universe, etc. and had accepted that he was nuts. Besides, the knoweledge that time was limited probably gave him the courage to ask Gretchen out (not to mention to tell off that stupid teacher and Patrick Swazye).
After Gretchen died I'm sure he was willing and waiting for the end to come, but once he flipped back in time, I'm sure realized that a) she was alive in the past, therefore not dead in 4 weeks and b) she'd never meet him, and therefore never would be at the old woman's house to be run over in the first place.
Anything like Requiem for a Dream? Kinda, sure. Requiem was an unrelenting portrait of 4 people whose lives were destroyed by drug use. Donnie is nuts and dies at the end. Yet when Requiem ended you knew that the shit was going to keep going on and at least 3 of the 4 would be dead within a year. After Donnie Darko, when you realized that it was a total flashback-and-reset deal, it was okay. All the shit (vandalism and insanity, mostly... with a smattering of teachers getting fired and some disillusionment) that happened in the movie was undone, never to be done.
So I didn't think it was all that sad of a movie. Even without the magical reset time-travel function, Donnie died knowing how and why, knowing that a lot fewer people would get hurt (including poor Frank), and knowing that the girl he loved wouldn't be hurt by his death (or by that car that ran over her). He knew he only had 4 weeks and had a hell of a time before he died. Not bad at all.
I spent the entire movie trying to figure out where the hell I'd seen Gretchen; I checked imdb and it turns out she's in Saved!, which looks hilarious beyond hilarity.
