July 25, 2004
Big Bald Dave Reviews The Donnie Darko Director's Cut!
Ah ... I'm just itching to see this. My love for Donnie Darko is on an epic scale. This is just a fantastic film, easily one of the best debut films I've ever seen, and I've been anxiously checking the website waiting for the day that they announce some screening dates for the director's cut here in Toronto. Twenty extra minutes of narcolepsy, a giant talking bunny and the coming apocalypse. What's not to like about that? Well, our good friend Big Bald Dave has seen it and deigned to share his opinion with us. Yeah. He likes it a bit, too. Read on.
DONNIE DARKO DIRECTOR'S CUT
If Richard Kelly never made another movie I'm willing to bet his place in cinema history would still be secure. When it was originally released in 2001 Donnie Darko took the underground cult cinema crowd by storm with its complex blend of comedy, science fiction horror and drama. Though some felt left in the dark by Richard Kelly's loose cosmology many saw Donnie Darko as an important statement about cosmology itself and about the need to not surrender our wills but to bend them to a clearly worthy purpose in a world that seeks to commodify and plasticize the soul. In fact so great was the effect of Donnie Darko on many younger viewers that the film became something to watch over and over again. I myself have seen the film seven or eight times and am still deeply moved not just by Donnie's choice but by the film's deep regard for the fate of all its characters. There are no indispensible characters in any of the narrative universes Donnie Darko gives us, just deeply flawed people full of themselves and all the evils we associate with a broken world. Donnie's choice to do his part in the saving of that world, his embrace of it just at the moment he should rage, his understanding of his connection to the other people in it, is organic faith at it's absolute most compelling for me, faith based on the idea that to save ourselves we must allow ourselves to be led down the correct path. Not only do our individual choices matter but they have cosmic significance. If anything Donnie Darko: The Director's Cut affirms that even more. Those hoping for a genuinely substantially different cut of the film are not likely to be dissapointed. Donnie Darko The Director's Cut offers plenty of new things to think about even as it affirms the earlier versions sense of urgency about spiritual journey.
The differences in the content of the two films include the re-instatement of many of the deleted scenes that were included on the DVD but the director's cut goes far beyond that. There is much more voiceover by Frank- the menacing rabbit - we hear Grandma Death speak and several text sections from her book are used as interstitials. I seem to remember thinking that the music is also substantially different with a more orchestral feel although fans of the first film will be happy that Gary Jules' rendition of Tears for Fears Mad World is still included. Also worth mentioning is the revamp and addition of special effects.In the interest of keeping this is as spoiler free as possible I won't say anymore but rest assured you'll be seeing a more fleshed out, richer version of the film fans know and love.
For hardcore Darko fans I also reccomend a visit here where you will find the Donnie Darko shooting script. Kelly maintains that there was a coherent viewpoint he wanted to establish with the film although in the DVD commentary he is, in my opinion, somewhat vague about what that is. Certainly Donnie darko is a film to make up ones own mind about. But the shooting script, particularly in Frank's lines, lines that are not included in the original or director's cut, will go a long way for fans who wish to sort through the film's major themes and ideas.
In the end I found the director's cut more fulfilling more satisfying because it seemed even more interested in addressing the big questions. "Are we alone? Do we die alone?" a character says at one point. This question that we all struggle with, this abyss we all look into, looms over the characters in this film but so does a great hope, a blue sky. Even as the movie lampoons the self help quackery of Jim Cunningham (cunning-ham, get it?) it manages to take comfort in the trustworthyness of truth trying to escape a cultural stranglehold. Our own individual place in that struggle can lead us where we need to be, our own individual place outside the confines of 'ism' and 'ologies that in the end can only point the way to a greater mystery.
Thanks Dave ... more of Dave's film and DVD reviews can be found over on his Imagine Dat website. And for those who are wondering, yes there will be a director's cut DVD. It's slated to be a two disc set with a stack of extras, but I haven't seen specific specs or a release date yet.
Posted by John Campea at July 25, 2004 12:51 PM
Comments
Posted by: tobe romero at July 25, 2004 03:14 PM
LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOVE this movie!!!
Posted by: Marla Singer at July 26, 2004 02:54 PM
can anyone tell me where the jet engine at the end that kills donnie came from? becuase he chose to stay in bed to prevent all this bad stuff but if he still gets killed by the jet engine then his mom and sister would still go through the time portal and all that junk. i may sound really dumb right now but i've just never been so confused before and i really like the movie except for that. so please, someone help me... ahh now i'm lost.
Posted by: Marla Singer at July 29, 2004 08:25 PM
The engine comes off the plane that his mother's on with Sparkle Motion ... there's a time rift that pulls the engine off the plane in the 'future' and drops it on Donnie's house in the 'present' ... that's why the FAA guys weren't able to locate the source - it hadn't happened yet.
Posted by: Bubba at July 29, 2004 08:41 PM
thats what i thought happened, but if donnie is dead then he wouldnt have burnt down cunninghams house and the teacher wouldnt start a support group for him and would be able to take the girls to the show and so she would be in the plane instead of hi mom so either way something bad happens, but i guess thats why he accepts the fact that he is alone and he cant prevent "the world from coming to an end" (which can mean many things) perhaps with donnies death his sister would not take part in sparkle motion and would not be on the plane when the time portal happens, so i guess donnies choice was the best one. The end was so emotional for me, and the song pushed the emotion to the max.
Posted by: Marla Singer at July 30, 2004 02:50 AM
What I found important here was that, given the FACT of death, fact we all must face, we can choose to embrace hope or despair. Donnie isn't so much making the best of a bad situation or worse giving up. Instead he has figured out the answer to the question of meaning, meaning comes from following the the path of love, trusting that our actions matter.
As characters at the end of the movie wake from their "bad dream" it's pretty clear that they've all (even that pervert Jim Cunningham) been given a chance at where they might be headed, they've all been challenged to "wake" from their despair as it were.
Posted by: big bald dave at July 30, 2004 10:46 AM
Its funny how the jet engine comes from the plane that Donnie's mom was on. Maybe that's why she isn't crying at the end, because she realizes that she was in that plane...after all, the entire 28 days were witnessed by the survivors as a dream. It would be really funny if there was a time when Donnie was a baby and his mother was smoking a cigarette and soaring a toy plane over his crib, when she dropped in on his chest and it made him black out.
Posted by: Dave at August 3, 2004 01:39 PM
You guys are all completely overlooking what happened with the jet engine. The jet engine that fell off of the plane at the end was untilized by Donnie as his time travel vessel. I know this because when Donnie speaks with his professor, the professor says it could be any metal object. However, this has no real impact on the mother, because Donnie uses it to travel back in time, and hence Sparkle Motion never happened, and neither did any of the significant happenings of the movie. I believe that the point this movie attempts to make is that our choices affect our whole life, and no matter how minute or insignificant our choices may seem at the time, one small decision can have a drastic impact on our life. I think it also comments on predetermination a bit, and puts forth the theory that if time travel were in fact possible, it must mean that predetermination and destiny are also factual and present within the world. Any comments or feedback would be appreciated.
Posted by: Mark at January 7, 2005 12:08 AM
The questions I have are... Does a plane still have it's engine ripped off in the future to kill donie in the end/future? Is his sister still on that particular plane? I know his mother deffinatly would not be (or do you actually think the snottty little girl would miss sparkle motion and then star search because her brother died? she'd still go.) Who's to say they wouldn't take the red eye back even with kitty? So no matter what, the engine, still gets ripped off in an alternate universe/future and so, there still would be a mystery as to where it came from. If so would that mean that there would be an alternate universe again?
Posted by: cire000 at September 7, 2005 11:41 AM
The DVD looks like it will be out here in the U.S. on October 5th (because it will be in the U.K. October 4th) according to empire online.
specs 1 http://www.empireonline.co.uk/site/competitions/competition.asp?cid=151
specs 2 http://www.dvdtimes.co.uk/content.php?contentid=12037