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By
WAYNE KLEIN
"Donnie Darko - The
Director's Cut" takes the audience down the rabbit
hole on a long, strange trip that alternately
becomes, surreal, comic, dramatic and just plain
scary.
In the strangest story this side of "Harvey,"
Donnie (Jake Gyllenhaal) suffers from
hallucinations and takes medication to help
control his "visions." One night after taking his
medication he has an encounter with a large,
rancid, evil looking six-foot tall rabbit that
informs him that the world is going to end.
"Frank" (as he calls his imaginary friend) takes
him briefly into the future, disappearing and
reappearing throughout the film. Evidently only
Donnie can stop it, as he's some sort of nexus for
the third and fourth dimension.
The film moves from fantasy to reality with no
clear indication as to whether or not Donnie's
"visions" are real or if everything is in his
imagination. Using a soundtrack made up of '80s
staples ("Love Will Tear Us Apart" by INXS and
"Head Over Heels" by Tears For Fears, among many
other titles), director/writer Richard Kelly
creates a bizarre satire of suburbia and surreal
science-fiction drama. Kelly's original version of
the film featured different songs and was shorter
(and now features new sequences and optical
effects not in the 2001 release) but also seemed
more open to interpretation. The allegorical
references sprinkled throughout the film along
with the bizarre dream sequences made the original
film both fascinating and plain weird.
This new director's cut makes the film less opaque
and adds an element of the "Twilight Zone" to
Kelly's rich, original vision. The director's cut
isn't necessarily a better film, just different.
Visually stunning and with an outstanding cast,
and an inscrutable script, "Donnie Darko" was just
different enough to not score with audiences
post-9/11. That's tragic, as this totally original
film makes an impression whether you're watching
the original version or the director's cut.
"Donnie Darko" lives up to its title with a number
of unusually dark images. Fox has done an
admirable job translating this film to DVD given
what they had to work with. Unfortunately,
director Kelly went for a muted, gauzy look with
soft blacks and muddy image reproduction. There's
nothing we can do about it, and Fox has done the
best with what they were given. I did notice
occasional analog flaws pop up on the print but
aside from that it looks pretty good despite the
limitations placed on the film by Kelly. I'm
surprised that Fox didn't use the extended
branching approach here that they did with the
"Alien Quadrilogy" boxed set, but that could be
simply because the film has been reshuffled too
much to do so. The 5.1 and 2.0 mixes sound solid
although the sound is a bit murky towards the
conclusion with some distortion on this edition of
the film.
A fascinating commentary track by Kelly, who
discusses his film with fellow director Kevin
Smith ("Clerks"), is, at turns, informative,
philosophical and very involving. Does it answer
the big questions about this film? Not exactly but
it wasn't designed to do that. There's also a
commentary track by director of photography Steven
Poster in the "Donnie Darko Production Diary"
which provides an interesting insider's
perspective and lots of trivia about the
production of the film. Featuring camcorder shot
footage of the search for locations and
behind-the-scenes footage of the production, it's
an interesting glimpse into the process of
pre-production. #1 "Donnie Darko Fan" is the
result of an Internet contest for the best short
film about being a fan of this film. The winner's
film is included and gives a glimpse into the odd
and at times frightening world of fandom. We also
get a storyboard to screen comparison for a key
sequence from the film. "They Made Me Do It"
features interviews with British fans of the film
discussing what drew them to the film and how it
changed their view of the world.
Kelly's original vision has been revised somewhat
in this Director's Edition of "Donnie Darko." The
meaning of Kelly's film is still, ultimately, open
to debate and while the film may be a bit less
ambiguous than the first theatrical cut, it also
got its fair share of great moments. Be warned
fans of the theatrical cut that this version runs
longer, has different songs and may spoil some of
your pet theories about the film's meaning. |
