Donnie Darko

Donnie Darko is a 2001 psychological thriller film written and directed by Richard Kelly. The film has been carefully made so that there are multiple explanations to what happens. The explanation heavily revolves around the book Donnie gets from his teacher, "The Philosophy of Time Travel" written by Roberta Sparrow.

Donnie is a troubled teenager with visions of a large bunny called Frank that only he can see. Frank often urges him to commit a series of dangerous crimes in which he doesn’t remember.

We first see Donnie lying in the middle of the road near the top of a mountain slowly awakening. The non digetic music is very light here and you can here keys of a piano being played which was added so the audience felt intense. The camera slowly pans towards him focusing on the scenery more so, which is dark and mysterious so it connotes to the thriller genre. The scenery also focuses on the mise-en-scene as the titles are in the thunderstorm so it relates on the audience that something bad is going to happen. As the titles are being viewed Donnie is out of the picture. Then the camera jumps to him and he smiles in amusement at his own sleep-walking, which is how he got there. His smile is disturbing and seems as if he’s proud of whatever he’s done. The music suddenly changes to fit the way Donnie is riding his bike. The music is by ‘Echo & the Bunnymen’. It’s quite upbeat and moving just like Donnie on his bike in which he bikes home where everything seems to be pretty normal.

Donnie's whole appearance is very laid back and comes across as he doesn't care much about himself. His face is often hid by the lighting which helps connote with the darkness of the film. It could come across as him being evil as he is in darkness with just his creepy smile appearing. Also, the audience could feel some confusion as Donnie appears to be in his own world laughing to himself (or at Frank) so he is oblivious to anything around him.