Fear and simplification

Is Donnie Darko a brilliant movie about deep philosophical questions of time and creation, or is it just another “God-is-dead-it-is-up-to-one-man-to-save-the-world” movie? Personally I reacted much like Josh; thought it was a cool, quirky film, more valuable because of its satirical treatment of contemporary society than because of the ‘philosophy’ of its time travel element.

Donnie Darko is interesting because the main character, the schizophrenic, seems to be the most sane and well-reflected of all the characters. If he does indeed have superpowers (like he indicates to Gretchen), these are the powers to resist the massive manipulation that works to reduce the world into a two-dimensional affair. Contrary to the teachings of Cunningham and his (fanatic!) followers, Donnie realizes that everything cannot be reduced into a continuum of love and fear. The human spectrum of emotion is complex, and fear and love only constitute one vector in multi-dimensional space. Consequently, this schizophrenic teenager exposes the guru Cunningham as a fraud. Cunningham plays on people’s fears and oversimplifies them in order to sell his (no doubt expensive) package of cheap solutions. He represents the danger implicit in the tendency of reducing profound questions into naiveties that can only lead us astray. The film provides several examples of the deception or destructiveness of this kind of denial. Cunningham himself is, of course, the greatest deception of all. Whereas he claims to possess the means to rid all people of their inner fears and lead them onto the path of love, he is himself a man possessed by a subversive kind of love and a nagging fear of having it exposed. Kitty Farmer’s refusal to believe the truth about Cunningham when it is finally exposed (by Donnie) is also a naïve denial. Contrarily, the people who do possess a wider perspective on things are restrained from communicating their knowledge. Due to the religious policy of the school, Dr. Monnitoff is not allowed to talk to Donnie about the deep philosophical questions that are to the latter a matter of life and death. Similarly is Karen Pomeroy’s concern with the increasing difficulties involved in the attempt to communicate with a generation in the process of receding into a state of apathy caused by the overexposure to ‘prescribed nonsense,’ interpreted by the principal as her own personal failure as a teacher. The principal finally fires her on the basis of her ‘unsound methods’. In this manner the people with real knowledge are silenced, while Kitty Farmer’s voice is heard as it rises to loud and shrill to warn society about the dangers of the active mind; of the subversive literature of Graham Greene, a character from Bonanza. On the bases of these characters and events, I read Donnie Darko as a critique of a mindless and fear-based society: a society based on censorship.      

I think Donnie is the only character that has a well-reflected view on fear. Whereas he acknowledges the fact that he possesses many fears, I do not think he is necessarily lying when he tells his psychologist that he finds the question of ultimate loneliness absurd, and that he has stopped thinking about it. Donnie seems to recognize that there exist different kinds of fear: rational as well as irrational. Being afraid when someone tells you that the world is going to end in 28 days, is, however absurd the situation, a natural reaction. If we accept the main framework of the film – namely that by being led by a Manipulated Dead rabbit, Donnie is able to save the world from destruction – then this fear is also highly rational.

Given the deceptive simplicity (and outright censorship) of the society Donnie Darko presents, the fact that the main character is a schizophrenic is significant. Possessing a mind of multiple personalities, Donnie – even when medicated – cannot be forced into seeing the world from one perspective only. His open mind and willingness to deal with questions otherwise avoided is indeed what saves the world. Although his condition is at times destructive, all his acts of destruction are ultimately creative. The flooding of the school leads to a new relationship; the fire to Cunningham’s house to the realization of a deeper and darker truth about the guru of simplification. Similarly, the murder of Frank indirectly becomes the salvation of the world. The events of the story in this manner underpin Donnie’s interpretation of destruction as creation. A world without the potential of creation is a stagnant and in many ways a worthless world: – hence his critique of the Smurfs. Within this line of thought, my question becomes: what if Donnie hadn’t saved the world? Could not its destruction in turn have led to ultimate creation?

Finally, I cannot help regretting the way the director has added the textual version of ‘The Philosophy of Time Travel’ to help guide the viewer through the interpretation of this complicated and somewhat confusing movie. Does not this addition somehow reduce the reading of the movie into exactly the kind of prescribed understanding it criticizes?