Wednesday, November 2, 2016

Watch Me: movie lising: Donnie Darko (2001)

There is nothing wrong with the concept of just clearly messing up time and space. Time travel, cross examination of existence between time lines, I guess making an effort to live life like so, discovering the definition of life changing and life ruining.

These days I find myself not enjoying any much content in any media for various 'I'm tired' reason. This prompted me to just embrace that too sensible or serious side and watch tons of physics and life questioning related movies. Psychological thrillers or just plain existentialism in movie platform are nice to watch, they pull strings that I couldn't feel sometimes. Or I feel it too much I've gone numb?

Last night I skipped working, just a bit, to finally watch Donnie Darko (2001) and a bit of Source Code (2011), since I was too sleepy the hour I watched the latter. Both are movies with Science-fiction concepts, Source Code with the stronger Scifi vibes, and both starred Jake Gyllenhaal, which I just realized when I started to watch Source Code. It wasn't intentional when I looked them up and went on and got a copy of the movies.

Donnie Darko has been in the list of my 'I'm highly curious' but 'I just couldn't get to you due to priorities are different' reasons of not watching it the moment I saw a tidbit info about it. There aren't much of a reaction for me on the movie since everything in it felt dream like, which they are. Fun was one word for the story, where in a sense the ending clearly concluded a good ending for the plights of Donnie who was clearly disturbed mayhaps for a semi-realistic or purely science fiction reasons.

Everyone in the world should try and watch Donnie with a sense and purpose of trying to look for easter eggs everywhere in the movie, at least still relating to the story, and never forgetting to set their empathy to a neutral level. Feelings flushed to me when I watched every part of it, shifting every relative sympathy and empathy for Donnie and the characters situation or flow of the story, wherever it lead. On the type of time and space fuck up it used was something I point out as sense of prediction, where everything was a linear end to a means but the ultimate decider still ended with Donnie.

At first you would get a bit confused why the story focused on several lives of characters that seemed insignificant during the course and even the moment they show up in the story, they are however significant in a sense that they formed what kind of Donnie would be by the end of the movie. This story clearly showed a good example of utilizing the characters around the main character, and the setting plot, to evolve them into what they can be. Almost all of them are praise worthy no matter how good or bad, a clear line of grey, their actions were. Except for Frank, who I didn't appreciate how strongly he was present in the whole of the movie, only to be truly introduced to be an almost third tier character related to Darko. His significance was the greatest yet he was the most irrelevant in terms of relation.

That itself makes me think that the person who wrote this story is that awesome, kudos Kelly.

The heaviness of the movie, due to all the psychological elements in it, tends to steer you completely away from the ending that was evident, a clear and obvious sign of Donnie's death or might be the end of his known world. The end can be interpreted in any way possible, but one thing was sure, it was the end for Donnie and him alone. Imagine being flooded by such thoughts at a young age clearly says something about the mentality of his character.

By the time you watch the climax of the movie you will be filled by assurance and hope that maybe Donnie could find a way to fight the inevitable. The end that he so feared, that, the fear he clearly felt drove him to almost endanger every single person important in his life. You can guess by this time that the end that was meant in the movie was his end, yet you question yourself whether he did choose to travel back in time or was it all truly in his head. Evident to the waking dreams of each character that made a grave distinction in his story, to the memorable up to the unpleasant ones.

Questioning the end, like the unconfirmed ending for Inception, is also another sign for me that the movie has truly caught your attention. Whether you get to have an answer for that won't matter, since the movie itself has already finished its purpose.

Telling a tale and making the viewer think for themselves of what is happening, to me, is a very captivating but taxing movie. You'd have to be a mental freak, or curious high mind; or a brain masochist, to enjoy one. Mind you, there is nothing wrong about that, it just means you'd rather have a high end mental entertainment in a level of which you'd rather not want to loose your mind in the course of enjoying everything. On the other, it's nice to get almost mindless and ignorantly stupid, site Angry Birds movie characters, which can also happen during the course in Donnie Darko.

There are that many elements emphasized to make you aware and even shallowly depressed, but it doesn't mean it won't pull you up. Life ups and downs are strongly evident in this story, and nothing short of the term roller coaster will truly miss a beat.

I feel like a child that missed out after watching this movie, now my inner child isn't missing out anymore, except I just need a different kind of outlet to make myself happier than the normal happy. The ignorant happy kind.

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