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.
