United States, October 1988, the eve of the Bush-Dukakis elections, an important moment in American history. Donnie (Jake Gyllenhaal) is an apathetic and sad boy, he doesn't have a good relationship with his family, teachers, and schoolmates, except for two delinquents with whom he has befriended; he suffers from sleepwalking, is considered to be "a troubled boy" and is nearing his eighteenth birthday. One day, during one of his frequent sleepwalking episodes, he meets a giant black rabbit named Frank, with human features. The message that the mysterious creature brings is simple: the world will end in 28 days. The next morning, Donnie wakes up in a golf course not far from his home. After returning home, he fatally realizes that his room has been destroyed by the engine of a crashed airplane and consequently will believe that his new friend saved his life. However, there are no traces of a flight near Donnie's town detected by radar or nearby control towers... Moving, melancholic but at the same time threatening, for a strange coincidence "Donnie Darko" was released on September 11, 2001 in the United States, precisely the day when Americans saw with their own eyes a kind of end of the world. Initially, the film had very little success and was panned by critics first in America and then also in Europe, but it was never released in Italy. Re-evaluated and conceived as a genuine example of a cult film, the movie boasts a plot at the pinnacle of originality that tends to unsettle the viewer, who witnesses the dramatic vicissitudes of Donnie, a common teenager who loves life like his peers, at least before meeting Frank, the black rabbit who became his friend and brought him a rather shocking message: "The world will end in 28 days." Fatally, it is said that the film was shot in exactly 28 days with a budget of about 5 million dollars, grossing approximately 500,000 dollars in five months. After the incredible failure, the film was hailed as a cinematic work of high artistic value, to the point that the young director Richard Kelly will make (3 years later) a second version of the film called "director's cut," in which he adds 20 minutes of unreleased scenes (at the time cut by the producers, who feared a flop, as indeed happened), along with explanations about time travel inspired by Stephen Hawking's theories. From the cast, the only known names are: Patrick Swayze, in the role of a shady positive thinking preacher who demonizes fear (which in reality is an integral part of the human soul) and Drew Barrymore, who believed in the project so much that she financed it out of her own pocket (in fact, she is credited as a producer). Spiteful is the description in the film of American provincialism, bigoted and well-mannered, where problems are hidden, and where the protagonist is labeled as a mentally ill person (in fact, he is under the care of a psychologist who hypnotizes him to discover the reason for his "strangeness" that makes him socially unacceptable), while in reality it is the society that surrounds him that is "crazy." This theme is deeply linked to the film's political vision, which is set in the final stages of the 1988 election campaign that marked the rise to power of the Bush family in the United States precisely thanks to the support of American provincialism against the liberal wing of the country (hilarious are the political conflicts within Donnie's family, with the convinced Republican father and the Dukakis activist sister, which resolves in teasing like "vote for Dukakis" written on the refrigerator); in this case, the references to Bush Jr.'s 2000 election are obvious, even if it was wisely preferred (an end-of-'80s setting to avoid making the film too current. The time travels and "parallel" realities on which much of the film is based are founded on real paradoxes generated by possible interpretations of Albert Einstein's general relativity equations that have made theoretical physicists discuss and have not yet been resolved, lacking experimental evidence. Despite this, "Donnie Darko" should not be considered a "science fiction" film more "scientific" than "fantastic," given that it is not really explained how these time travels occur, and how it is possible that the messengers in the other reality are the dead of the other universe. The film does not possess these pretensions and should not be considered on a par with an episode of "Star Trek" or "The Twilight Zone." In conclusion, "Donnie Darko" is a very interesting film, with an obsessive dose of emotion that explodes in scenes of uncontrollable human despair of which the young protagonist is a victim. A sublime mix of drama, horror, music, and sci-fi, a completely new genre that strikes the public's attention to the core; a film worthy of being seen that suggests parallel universes, narrating the brutal anguish of youth.
Comments
Comments (0)
Comments