Donnie Darko: The Director’s Cut

Why are you wearing that stupid man suit?

Who is Donnie Darko? At school, he is a teenage outsider. At home, a boy struggling with mental health issues. In his dreams, he is the chosen one, visited by a giant, sinister rabbit named Frank. Frank claims that the world is about to end. And when those dreams begin to spill over into reality, Donnie is confronted with questions larger than life itself: about time, destiny, and the nature of the world.

Donnie Darko is like a plunge down the rabbit hole. It is a cinematic puzzle that makes room for time travel, a Lynchian vision of American suburbia, high-school drama, a satire of self-help culture, physics, philosophy, turn-of-the-millennium anxieties, and Alice in Wonderland. It is also as much of an enigma as its director, Richard Kelly, who, after this dazzling debut, went on to make two more equally strange films – and then fell silent. The film also marked a breakthrough for Jake Gyllenhaal, who was just twenty when it was shot and who, as Donnie, first revealed his remarkable gift for playing ambiguous, deeply complex characters. Calling Donnie Darko a cult film is no exaggeration; it is practically a textbook example of one. The film disappeared in cinemas, only to gradually attract a devoted following whose members, in the early days of the internet, dissected even its smallest details on online forums in an effort to answer one persistent question: what was it all really about? The mystery of Donnie Darko captivated Polish film lovers as well, despite the fact that it never received a theatrical release in Poland. With Reset, we are bringing the film to Polish screens on the 25th anniversary of its premiere.

Reset

Richard Kelly (b. 1975) – American director and screenwriter. He drew inspiration from the styles of Terry Gilliam, Peter Weir, and Steven Spielberg. Kelly gained fame with his debut film Donnie Darko, now regarded as a cult classic. Following its success, he wrote and directed two more films, Southland Tales and The Box. Afterward, he largely disappeared from the public eye for sixteen years. He is currently working on several new projects.

16th American Film Festival Catalogue