Altering Reality
A critical analysis essay on the movie Donnie Darko
Richard Kelly’s debut film, Donnie Darko (2001), tells the story of a schizophrenic high school student tasked with saving the world before it ends by a figure in a giant bunny suit. Not many other absolutes can be ascertained about the transpiring events of the movie. It was made to be a highly interpretive film with subtle ambiguity shrouding every action, scene setting, and line. In a 2017 interview with PopMatters Magazine, Richard Kelly is quoted saying “I think that’s what I’m focused on: building my own sandbox. …these movies are more connected than people realize. They’re all part of a bigger story and a bigger universe, ultimately…”. Fans have come up with many theories about the meaning, motifs, and implied messages of the film but few have been confirmed as being even just moderately aligned with Kelly’s vision. Producer Sean McKittrick says the film is meant to explore what is “conformity and what lies under that conformity” (Deus Ex Machina: The Philosophy of Donnie Darko, 2016). The New Age Movement is dated between the 1970–80’s and had its base established in varying alternate and occult communities and had a substantial amount of influence over younger generations of Americans than older ones, and elements of Donnie Darko allude to its symbolic presence in the movie. Donnie Darko can be interpreted as a representation of postmodernism and occultism in the year 1988. Kelly’s “sandbox” builds a cinematic reflection of challenges to the suburban modernist mindset and how alternative philosophies could potentially contribute to a cultural reset lead by its youth.
Setting
“And the prince was led into a world of strange and beautiful magic” — Samantha Darko
The 1980’s have a reputation of being a tumultuous decade, marked by its laxation in government, adherence to societal conformity, and wild expressions. In 1988, when the movie is set, the postmodern era had imbedded itself into mainstream culture lending to most of the 80’s eccentric qualities. The postmodernist movement intended to distinguish itself from modernism by attempting to up-end and reestablish social conventions in an ironic way, one of these being alternative religious practices (Syzoni and Brinzeu). “… destruction is a form of creation, so the fact that they burn the money is ironic. They just want to see what happens when they tear the world apart. They want to change things,” (Donnie Darko) is a poetic and extremer version of what the movement idealized. Although, when Donnie says this, he is discussing the children in Graham Greene’s The Destructors, but any discussion of children in the film has a broader reference to the children of the x-generation. The modern practices took from eastern philosophies, different branches of mysticism, paganism, occultism, metaphysics, Christian religions, and incorporated science to some extents. The primary focus of these religions was to attain some type of higher knowledge or enlightenment (being the more popular term) in order to gain absolution from the mental and physical confinements of society.
The first few scenes of Donnie Darko can be attributed to expressing these intentions through its foundations of the setting. Hermetic philosophy lends itself to the basis of modern occultism, one of the main beliefs derived from it being that of “the planes of correspondence” which divides human perception into “three great classes of phenomena”: the great physical, mental, and spiritual planes (The Three Initiates). Similar interpretations are found not only in modern occultism, but also in eastern doctrines and psychology, and the Kybalion (being a 20th century text on hermetic principles) claims to have relation to both. It gives explanation to how we process external stimuli to gain understanding. Kelly is meticulous about using the power of suggestion in all of the corresponding details of his films such as the visual elements, musical elements, and scene placements.
The first scene shows Donnie biking through the physical setting of his hometown and begins introducing his family set to the song “The Killing Moon” by Echo & the Bunnymen, which is about fate presiding over free will. The great physical plane has three minor planes: matter, ethereal substance, and energy. Matter embodies itself as the physical characteristics and people in the scene. Ethereal substance — “a substance … pervading all universal space,” (The Three Initiates, 75)- is denoted from the song and slow pacing, emphasizing the tone and themes that will be predominant throughout the film. Energy is reactions that present themselves under certain conditions exerted through the physical and ethereal planes, and the viewer sees Donnie’s family exuding certain individual energies as the scene progresses. Energy modality is also a key feature of Jewish mysticism, known as Kabbalism, and has prestige as being one of the first mystic religions still surviving into modern day (Matt).
The third scene is where Frank, the giant and possibly imaginary bunny rabbit, is introduced by waking Donnie up and into a state of psychosis. One definitive feature of postmodernist ideals was drug usage with the intent of altering the mind so as to make it more susceptible to understanding, the most well-known examples of this being observed in the “hippies” of the 1970’s. Frank is thought to be a hallucination later told by Donnie to his therapist, but this becomes more questionable over the span of the movie. This scene demonstrates the mental plane as viewers descend into the workings of Donnie’s mind, and the first instance where his schizophrenia manifests.
The fourth scene sets the stage as almost contradictory to what one might instinctively think of as a mystic spiritual plane, but given Kelly’s affinity for layered symbolism, it elicits critical thought about what people perceive as spiritual, and a meta-reference is made about its significance by Samantha in her “world of strange and beautiful magic” quote right before the children are deposited there as well as the song “Head Over Heals” by Tears for Fears playing over the scene. America’s most practiced religion is Christianity, and the school represents the spiritual plane under Christian assumptions, however almost every character in the scene is acting in unvirtuous ways. Every religion preaches against false ideologies, saying something along the lines of “it may seem correct, but it isn’t actually in alignment with the truth that is law over our existence.” This othering of opposing ideologies is pertinent to securing followings, however postmodernist occults tended to acknowledge their integral compilation of other sources. Classic occult religions were no different, and several references are made to this in the Kyballion. This establishes the figurative conflict between mainstream and subset culture, as well as major and alternative religions.
The driving conflicts of Donnie Darko center around and take place at the school, which brings together distinctive characteristics of science (particularly physics and psychology), postmodernist literature, and self-help doctrines under censorship of Christian fundamentals. Donnie Darko’s personal beliefs, much like occultist ones, seem to be placed outside of this setting, but not totally opposite of it. The major conflicts arise from the tensions created by these different schools of thought. The school itself represents society as a whole and how it regards youth. High school is where most adolescence begin to become more independent in their thoughts and identities, the way the environments are structured around them plays an important role in how they will develop these identities (Greene). The leading antagonists of the movie are a teacher and famous motivational speaker who are determined to keep the children from being alienated but only out of self-serving interests (the teacher wants to preserve the authority of accepted doctrines -symbolized by the arguments over books that circulate the film- and the motivational speaker is a pedophile), and in the end proves to be a futile endeavor. Every instance where Donnie challenges either character is met with high favoritism from the other characters, and his punishments don’t cease his mission to save the world.
Plot
“I hope that when the world comes to an end, I can breathe a sigh of relief, because there will be so much to look forward to.” -Donnie Darko.
The movie’s plot, rather literally, circulates around the time-line Frank gives Donnie for when the world will end, not entailing how it will end. Theories on dooms day, and likewise terms, are riddled across religion and conspiracy theories, and without much wonder were focal points of extremist cults. Headlines were made in the 1980’s across the nation about extremist, suicide, and end-of-the-world cults, a few examples being the Thelema, Children of God, Heaven’s Gate, Free-Love, and Rajneesh. They typically took from eccentric religion and psychiatric practices, with esoteric and mystic elements. One thing they share, some cults believed in the cosmological view that beginnings and ends were the same thing. Ancient cosmology modeled its system around the concepts of intelligent design, purpose, destiny, the laws of time, correspondence, and origins of humans (Santhosh). Occultists of the same time assumed these concepts and they are still seen as fundamental in the postmodern era.
Donnie Darko is modeled around the same themes, notably in the plot structure where at the end of the movie it goes back to the third scene where Donnie’s house is hit with a plane engine, except he dies instead of waking up on a golf course. The plot development is Donnie’s struggle to save the world, being demonized by authoritative figures and praised yet misunderstood by his peers while struggling with his own self-perception and world views. His dying is the epoch of the end of the “world” or reality that was already set in place and his predetermined destiny, being that he reached his destiny it could be assumed that he completed his mission and brought enlightenment to the world. However, it seems to imply a more personal achievement than external one. The second to last scene, Donnie is back in his room, laughing, right before he is killed, and his voice is placed over the scene reading a letter he wrote to Grandma Death about being relieved when the world ends. The scene cuts to a montage of all the characters waking up mourning while Gary Jule’s “Mad World” plays. They appear to still be affected by the events of the alternate reality that took place, grieving or questioning what could have been (since Donnie dies none of the prior events take place and the systems in place face no opposition).
Themes
“This famous linguist once said that of all the phrases in the English language, of all the endless combinations of words in all of history, that ‘cellar door’ is the most beautiful.” -Karen Pomeroy
What lies under the action and dialogue of any written or visual work are themes. From themes, in combination with how they are represented, interpreted meaning can be determined about the works. The meaning of existence is explored in the movie with no affirmations made on what that might be, the quote above given by Donnie’s English teacher alludes to this exploration when he asks her what “cellar door” means. Metaphorically it could symbolize hidden potential or descent. Kelly never asserts his beliefs on meanings generally because his reigning one is that people should guide themselves to their own conclusions (Deus Ex Machina). There are blatant discourses and discussions given in the movie about existence between Donnie and other characters (e.g. his therapist and science teacher). Four themes protrude from the movie Donnie Darko that comply with addressed sub-topics of existence in several doctrines of the occult and eastern philosophies. Perception, the most obvious, questions how we perceive existence. Enlightenment suggests a higher purpose to existence outside of the mundane and biological. Fate and free will debates how our existence is controlled and who (or what) by. Cause and effect are patterns of human action and consequences that shape our current existence.
Three common motifs of perception are seen in Donnie Darko: eyes, time, and the mind. There are numeral instances where the camera is focused on Donnie’s eyes (when he is called to “wake up”) and Frank’s (stabbing in the bathroom mirror, taking off his mask, being shot in the eye, holding his eye at the end), the eye drawing (done by Richard Kelly for the movie and depicted on the title page of this essay), and all the references of seeing made. Time is marked regularly for the sake of the countdown given by Frank and is discussed regularly when conversations about time travel come up in the film, along-side mentions of “times of pain” made by Gretchen, Donnie’s girlfriend. Mental aspects are given anytime Donnie shows signs or talks about his schizophrenia, which has massive effects on his perception. His unique insight is what enables his ability to act outside of convention. The human mind is the root of perception, where information that is first externally perceived is processed and stored to create personal beliefs, to summarize the American Psychological Association definition. Any religion or practice implementing magic tends to stress the importance of perception as being the foreground for being able to emanate power from some astral source.
Chaos magick is a post-modernist magical practice that believes physical and abstract things that exist in reality can be manipulated through control over perception. Chaos magicians’ practices come from many different sectors of occultism and psychology, but only as a formal basis and describe practices as being individually catered, not requiring any specific rituals, and materialized by connection to the “universal mind” (Duggan). The views of postmodern skepticism are imminent in this practice by its intention to separate from classic forms of magic and develop new laws. Another example of Chaos Magick’s revised beliefs, instated by founder Austin Spare, is that supernatural beings are just complexes of the subconscious that can become independently operating beings of their creators and “synchromysticism” -combining Carl Jung’s meaningful coincidences theory with animism — which binds esoteric significance to synchroneities found in everyday life (Duggan). Chaos Magick requires its practitioners to be in a state of gnosis (mindfulness), named for the Greek word meaning knowledge and the basis for Gnosticism which believed knowledge was the way to enlightenment.
Enlightenment
Enlightenment takes on many forms, especially through characters Frank, Grandma Death, and Donnie. Frank’s prophecy of the world ending incites this urge in Donnie to make the world a better place, unconfined to the limited prospects of the self-help movement and Christian rules the students are being subjected to. Grandma Death is an elderly neighbor who might’ve had a similar experience to Donnie’s because she wrote a book, “The Philosophy of Time Travel”, that is given to Donnie later and it describes everything he is witnessing (the astral spears that project out of people, time travel, and chaos) and guides him to his fate. She appears at the end of the movie, when the world is ending, all in white and causes Frank’s car to run over Gretchen which is how Frank and Donnie meet before the time loop, and where he shoots Frank in the eye. Donnie’s entire arch causes him to grow a greater understanding of the world around him and forces that work outside of it, seeming to control it and assumes the ability to affect the world also.
Transcendence is a term used in the occult to mean coming to enlightenment and was used early on by Hermetics but was expanded upon by the Hermetic Order of Golden Dawn. The Golden Dawns primary goal was outlined in the Cypher Manuscripts (religious text) as bringing their consciousness to the spiritual realm (Denisoff), while Hermetics and Gnostics were set on achieving being actual god-like figures with infinite knowledge and wisdom. “…its aim was to bring [the individual] closer to spiritual maturity and potency, by inflaming the imagination, providing access to altered states of consciousness,” (Denisoff). The Golden Dawn wasn’t post-modern, but it has the same attributes of post-modern religious groups such as no absolute truths, lack of dogma, and being eclectic. It inspired later cults and religious groups of the same discipline.
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One scene in Donnie Darko has almost a full discussion between Donnie and his science teacher at the school touching on purpose and time travel and is cut off at Donnie asking about free will. His teacher can’t discuss his opinions on free will since they are in the school because Christian schools state that you can only teach in accordance with the bible. Donnie seems to suggest that both free will and fate work with each other when he says, “And if you could see your path or channel, then you could see into the future, right? Like it’s a form of time travel.” Donnie’s teacher claims this is contradictory, but Donnie is insistent that you can freely choose to travel along “God’s path”. Occultism was probably so popular in the postmodern era and its counterculture because of how fluid and dualistic it is in theurgy, like with beginnings and ends being the same thing, though post-modern philosophy itself seems to reject determinism altogether as being irrelevant. Coming back to Hermeticism, they state that man has free will but, his ascension follows along the astral planes (Kybalion). Astral projection is a self-induced out of body experience that allows the human conscience to travel freely through different realms, being mostly associated with esoterism- one of the contributing ideologies to modern-day occultism- and taken up by the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn.
This could explain the liquid-like “astral spears” Donnie begins to see that flow out of other people’s body and travels in front of them, and Kelly claims to like motif of liquid for expressing fluidity (Deus Ex Machina). Free will has other subtle references in the movie, in songs that portray these dual themes, the life board exercises, the auditorium scene, but testaments to fate found in the dialogue seem to only apply to Donnie (the only character with ambiguous figure outside of himself controlling his actions) and to the hypothetical future of the children, a re-appearing debate in the movie.
Cause/effect
Cause and effect are discussed in many fields such as history, social sciences and studies, politics, literature, philosophy- any discourse or theory that focuses on the human condition will discuss cause and effect. Occultists were no different (cause and effect is one of the seven hermetic principles of truth), but one key distinction in their application is that there is a strong resistance to coincidence. They tend to lean into the idea that the governing bodies of the astral realm determine all action and courses in the physical world with an intent purpose but view it from an empirical standpoint as being cause and effect. It contrasts the common belief on free will, by implying that humans have control over their actions, but they do not have control over what effects it will have. Donnie commits three felonies in the film (property destruction, arson, and murder) but faces no negative repercussions, and in fact has benefits. Donnie tells Gretchen he’s happy the school was flooded so he was able to walk her home, burning down the motivational speaker’s house leads to authorities discovering he is a pedophile, and shooting Frank is how they connect before (and possibly why) he turns into Donnie’s personal prophet. He does get suspended for speaking disrespectfully to the motivational speaker, however if he wasn’t suspended, he wouldn’t have been able to burn his house down because he’d have an obligation to attend the school’s talent show. Everything Donnie does that Frank orders is rewarded.
Final Analysis
“We are losing them to apathy, to this prescribed nonsense.” — Karen Pomeroy
So then why does Donnie die? Frank is also technically dead, his ether is what is guiding Donnie, and allows him to travel the planes freely and at the same time as his physical person. If Donnie’s whole purpose was to find an enlightened sense of understanding, free of earthly consequences and Frank is guiding him on his path, it can be assumed it’s because he has already achieved enlightenment. Ends are beginnings, following the same pattern of thought deaths are re-births. Moon magic concerns itself with this cycle of death and rebirth, observed in many mystic and ancient Greek traditions, the moon’s phases represent a cycle that brings about change. The moon’s light changes over the course of the night shots of Donnie Darko, change and the moon are common themes in the soundtrack of the movie, and the countdown written on Donnie’s arm “28:06:42:12” is a play on how lunar months are measured, accounting for the fact that time has already passed since the beginning of the current phase is why it deviates from the typical 29 days, 12 hours, 44 seconds, and 2.8 seconds it lasts on average. The movie was shot in 28 days using a natural setting, possibly to capture this phenomena and have it be an organic effect over the movie’s production. Post modernism follows the same pattern, expressed by the want to dismantle modernism and replace it with a culture that is untethered to modernist ideals, but it didn’t have a vision for what it’d be replaced with and was devoted to experimentation and a “nothing really matters” mindset.
Without Frank’s influence and Donnie’s death, things could have been much worse. The speaker wouldn’t have been arrested, Donnie wouldn’t have started dating Gretchen, and his mother and sister would’ve died in a plane crash. As Gretchen puts eloquently, “What if you could take all of those moments of pain and suffering and replace it with something beautiful?” Donnie’s death also seems to have a greater effect on the town than his presence did, and one thing that is never clarified is if his death causes the understanding, he was trying to convey the entire time, but it is implied in the characters grief that it might. The movie’s end has some other obvious plot holes. Donnie watches himself die, which could lead viewers to believe that both timelines are in effect and that there may have been a third timeline that actually incited the first one presented because if Frank had never come back to guide Donnie, he may also have never been shot in the eye. There are many what if’s left open to speculation, which is truly a marvelous representation of what was happening with postmodernism in the 1980’s and the occult’s hypothetical responses to the chaos, because everything is on the realm of possibility and nothing really matters, especially for Donnie since he is transcended and can travel freely through all of them.
Conclusion
“Sometimes I’m afraid you’ll tell me this is not a work of fiction,” is a line delivered by Donnie at the end in his letter to Grandma Death, that is so elusive it’s almost unrecognizable as being meta, and this encapsulates the message of Donnie Darko. Grounding the interpretation of the movie to the ideologies and principles of postmodernism and occultism argues against the predominant influences of 1980’s suburban culture, especially on youth. The movie may come off as complex and daunting, but that is only because the theories it addresses and basis it uses with are complex, have a broad range of discourse, and have been debated since the beginning of human civilization and is concisely describing what it developed into. Richard Kelly calling his projects his “sandboxes” is completely appropriate because the amount of detail and thought out into each is comparable to the grains of sand that make up the whole.
Works Cited
Books
- Initiates, Three. The Kybalion: A Study of the Hermetic Philosophy of Ancient Egypt and Greece. TarcherPerigee, 2018.
- Matt, Daniel C. The Essential Kabbalah: The Heart of Jewish Mysticism. HarperCollins, 2010.
- Mathew, Santhosh. Essays on the Frontiers of Modern Astrophysics and Cosmology. Springer Praxis Books, 2013.
Online Articles and Journals
- Denisoff, Dennis. “The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, 1888–1901.” BRANCH: Britain, Representation and Nineteenth-Century History. Ed. Dino Franco Felluga. Extension of Romanticism and Victorianism on the Net.
- Duggan, Colin. “Perennialism and Iconoclasm: Chaos Magick and the Legitimacy of Innovation.” Asprem, E. & K. Granholm (Eds.) Contemporary Esotericism., Durham/Sheffield: Acumen/Equinox, 23 Apr. 2014. https://www.academia.edu/3077943/Perennialism_and_Iconoclasm_Chaos_Magick_and_the_Legitimacy_of_Innovation.
- Greene, Barbara A., et al. “Predicting High School Students’ Cognitive Engagement and Achievement: Contributions of Classroom Perceptions and Motivation.” Contemporary Educational Psychology, Academic Press, 19 Mar. 2004, https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0361476X04000086.
- Macek III, J. C.. “Mainstream Darko: Director Richard Kelly On Building His Own Sandbox.” PopMatters 3 April 2017. https://www.popmatters.com/richard-kelly-interview-2495396124.html
- Szonyi, Gyorgy Endre, and Pia Brinzeu. “The Esoteric in Postmodernism.” Researchgate.net, Dec. 2011, https://www.researchgate.net/publication/254218201_The_Esoteric_In_Postmodernism.
Movies
- Deus Ex Machina- The Philosophy of Donnie Darko. Directed by Daniel Griffith, Ballyhoo Motion Pictures, 2016.
Donnie Darko. Directed by Richard Kelly, Flower Films, 2001
