Good evening ladies and gentlemen, it’s my honour to be opening this festival. Tonight we shall be presenting a selection of psychological thriller films and we will begin with Donnie Darko.
Humans have come far from the days when primal instincts ruled us; but with progress we also gained knowledge of our own mortality. Faced with the knowledge of our impending doom we may be prepared to attempt activities and behaviours which we would not do ordinarily because of our fear of the consequences. When we lack the courage to take these chances we turn to film to see what would happen if one did. Donnie Darko delves into these ideas and highlights the different perceptions of normality and abnormality; sanity and insanity. Donnie the main character in the film lives in a small town surrounded by small minded religious bigots who bring us to question who is sane and insane and our perception of reality. As the protagonist’s grasp on reality becomes increasingly irrational our comprehension of the plot begins to distort. As the plot unfolds the idea that our perception of reality is often clouded by simplicity, fate and imagination becomes apparent.
The film tackles the idea of oversimplifying the world. One scene depicting this is Ms Farmer’s gym class, where she asks the class to pinpoint what each action is motivated by, either fear or love. Donnie responds (IF VIDEO DOESN’T WORK ‘’you’re just lumping everything into these two categories, and denying everything else… people aren’t that simple’’). The idea that humans only act on two primal emotions is according to Donnie an oversimplification. The alternate view is that our perceptions of situations or events are determined by our relativity to a moment. This relativity influences the participants’ understanding and involvement within the event, one’s reaction to an event, the choices made and hence the initiation of an entirely new track of events.
The thought of having a planned out life might be comforting to a lot of people but try to imagine what it would be like to have the same outcomes in your life no matter what you do. Fate or having a set track of events that will occur throughout your life regardless of the choices you make is a daunting and scary idea. Fate manifests itself in Donnie Darko as spear like water trails that appear out of people’s stomachs, they give a visualisation of the predestination that’s been set for them. Donnie is able to see these trails. A scene depicting this visualisation of destiny is when Donnie is hosting a Halloween party. As he walks down the hall into the kitchen he experiences a headache, sees the spears and people walking according to the spears. Donnie’s awareness of everyone’s fate, including his own gives him a sense of great responsibility over it. However the knowledge of one’s fate comes with the debilitating choice of whether to change it or not, with no understanding of the consequences that could arise. Donnie is forced to face this decision, however he is not alone. He has his six foot rabbit, Frank, to help him.

Frank is presented as a figment of Donnie’s schizophrenic mind. Donnie instantly becomes wrapped up in a world of confusion as Frank saves him from being crushed by a plane engine while sleeping. Donnie begins to understand that Frank isn’t a normal imaginary friend. As an audience we assume Frank is just that, an imaginary friend but as the film progresses and Frank increasingly starts to affect Donnie’s life we start to see that Frank has more control over this world than we thought. One scene does its best to establish Frank’s control over Donnie. Donnie has a dream that the school is flooded. He then begins sleepwalking, grabs an axe and heads towards his school. He continues into the room with the water main and bursts it open. Donnie then