Context:

1988 – Middle-class American
US Presidential Debate: Democrat Michael Dukakis vs. Republican George Bush

Postmodern film with mixing together many disparate styles and ways of film-making together into the same movie. : hybrid of science fiction, gothic horror, super hero, coming of age, social satire, period film (80s), ‘mind game’ This highlights the constructed nature of the film by explicitly incorporating or referring to other media and texts. Intertextuality: the movie incorporates music/ lyrics both diegetically and intertextually the distinction between ‘high’ and ‘low’ art styles, techniques and texts both canonical literary texts and popular music are used as intertextual referents in the film shows an undoing/ collapse of the divide between ‘high’ and ‘low’ art. Moreover, the film asks profound moral and philosophical questions, while at the same time is a teen romance/ dark comedy/ drama. ‘mind game’ film either ‘play games’ with the audience’s perceptions characters whose mental condition is extreme, unstable, or pathological they oblige one to choose between seemingly equally valid, but ultimately incompatible ‘realities’ or ‘multiverses’.
Donnie Darko as a liminal character
During the opening scene Donnie is more concerned with defending his psychological difficulties, than he is in contributing to the political discussion that is taking place amongst the adult members of his family
Donnie is positioned between his younger sister Samantha, who naïvely sits unengaged in the conversation, and his older sister who freely expresses her political opinions.
Donnie’s journey from adolescence to adulthood can also be understood as a liminal time in his development: his identity is still crystallising and he must make sense of the world around him. time travel as a metaphor and catalyst for the coming of age
‘unstuck’ in time Music and lyrics
The use of poignant songs from the late 1980s, not only signify the temporal location of the film, but also create an emotive effect through the interrelationships between the music, lyrics and narrative
Opening Sequence emotional bond between image and audience is conveyed through the melodramatic strings and chiming guitars of the Bunnymen track: a non-diegetic insight into what our protagonist is feeling as he pedals home in the morning sunlight. ‘Killing Moon’ serves the slow motion establishing shots well in terms of aesthetic synergy the slow pan inside the Darko house, past Samantha on the trampoline and Rose reading in the backyard.
As well as creating a grand sense urgency in the early tracking shots of Donnie on his bike, there is a more serene, fluid mood to these slow motion shots, matched in the tempo and tonality of the Bunnymen track.
The song also has a lyrical importance, foreshadowing the narrative of the film. Whilst the