Tuesday, February 1, 2011

Did Donnie Choose?

The movie Donnie Darko centers around a boy stuck in a parellel Universe and his angst filled problems. We watch as he struggles to find himself through normal teen, and abnormal situations. He is haunted by visions of the bunny Frank, and becomes riddled with many Existentialist questions. However, does this make the movie an existentialist movie? I don't think the overall theme of the movie focused on existentialism, (although I'm not really sure what the overall movie theme was) I think the philosophies of existentialism were not presented strongly enough for the film to be included on the "Top 10 Existentialist Films" list.

The biggest problem I have with this being labeled an existentialist film, is the basis of existentialism is that people have free will. They say people have choices and decisions, and there are no predetermined destinies or ultimate truths. Yet in the movie, there are many times in which Donnie is NOT given a choice. For example, he didn't CHOOSE to be transported to the parellel universe. The Artifact that was transported through the time vortex randomly landed on his house, therefore causing him to be the Living Receiver. Once he has been chosen as the living receiver, he must "return the Artifact to the primary universe". If the movie was truly existentialist in nature, Donnie would have a choice to travel between the primary and unstable parallel universes.

Also the weird bubbly things that come out of the characters chests seem to show that people have predetermined paths, even if only into the next room or seconds into the future. This, again, contradicts the views that each moment is requires constant decisions and should therefore be a constant source of anxiety.

But then again maybe I am looking at the whole thing wrong. Perhaps the bubbles only show the persons intent, not their predetermined paths. They may be showing the decisions that the person has already made, but then again why would Donnie's bubble lead him to the gun?

I guess I was just disappointed with how vague the existentialist themes were and also how many contradicted each other, I still liked the movie a lot though :)

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