Donnie Darko is synonymous with October

There is a unique feeling in Donnie Darko that seems unrepeatable to me, as I haven’t seen a similar setting in another film. From the opening logos, an ambient sound evokes a distant thunderstorm, and as we see Donnie waking up in the middle of a mountain road, a nostalgic atmosphere typical of the 1980s surrounds us.

One thing I love about Donnie Darko is its editing. Richard Kelly did a great job recreating the era of the VHS tapes and the synthesizer music. When Donnie, for example, rides his bike home, we can see the typical grain of 80s films in the image. The sun shining on the cars, the color palette, the cinematography… Everything resembles how movies looked back then.

What can we say about the soundtrack? Once Donnie embarks on his way back, a great song plays: The Killing Moon. It’s not there just because it is from that decade, or because it’s very good or representative, but because its atmosphere fits perfectly with what Kelly was looking for in the film. The lyrics relate to what’s happening in the movie, the music is composed of echoes that add a haunting vibe to the scene, and the singer’s reverberating voice transports us to the past.

During the opening scene, Kelly also illustrates autumn very well. We see around an advertisement for the Halloween carnival that will be available to the people, Donnie’s father is outside using a leaf blower and fooling around with his daughter, and we see that Ms. Darko is now in spooky mode by reading Stephen King’s It.

This scene is one of the best introductions in a movie. I realize that Richard Kelly not only was pretending to say to us that it was autumn or that we were in October, but he gave us touches of the characters’ personality, as well as showing us the principal question: who is Donnie and why the hell did he sleep in the mountains?

When I saw this film for the first time, I was around nineteen years old, and even though I was grown up enough, I couldn’t say that I didn’t feel a little related to Donnie. My youth, if I can describe it in any way, was a story of psychological drama, and when I met this guy, I could see that he was going through similar situations. I felt that he might understand me.

And I’m not saying this because I was a troubled boy who called his mother a bitch, insulted his sister, or I got saved from the collision of a turbine in my house by a giant bunny rabbit. No. I was able to see beyond Donnie’s attitude.

Donnie is a teenage boy who wonders about his purpose and feels curious about the world that surrounds him. He dislikes the narrow-mindedness of some of his professors, and, if he needs deep answers, he goes to the right people. Donnie seems fascinated by the bigger picture, but in his desire to understand everything, he also feels very misunderstood.

All these thoughts overwhelm him, and with his mission in the film, he became obsessed with unraveling the mystery. He also went to see a female therapist who was barely able to help him. For a nineteen-year-old like me, who would also later have to see a female therapist to understand thousands of things, Donnie Darko became an emotional refugee.

After seeing it at least five times, I showed it to my best friend, and luckily he loved the movie as much as I did. For many years, we had the tradition of watching it every time Halloween approached. Maybe the autumns are not colorful where I live (barely one or two trees get yellow and shed their leaves), but for us, Donnie Darko was October itself. When we finished it, we couldn’t stop feeling that we were inside the movie. It was great fun to pretend that the end of the world was also upon us.

Another aspect that evokes the spooky season is the various nods to Halloween throughout the film. Unlike other films, which only feature a classic teenage party (which is not missing here), in addition to the sign at the beginning, for example, there is also a television commercial. I said to my friend, “Look! I wish we lived in a town like that, where they advertise their carnival on television.” The place where Donnie lives is magical and full of life.

How can we forget the scene where Donnie goes with his girlfriend to the movies? The marquee is beautiful by itself, thanks to the sign and the neon lights. In it, we can read titles such as The Evil Dead or The Last Temptation of Christ. Richard Kelly introduces various shots with some edition effects to highlight the beauty of the marquee. The spiders, the cobwebs, the skull decorations, and the horror movie posters are the cherry on top.

In that same scene, after Donnie and Gretchen pick The Evil Dead, they turn out to be the only people at the movie theater. I love how Kelly uses sequences from Sam Raimi’s movie to represent some key points in Donnie Darko. The graininess of the film on screen, the sound from the speakers, and the way he combines the topic of the portals with The Evil Dead ends up being so accurate.

It seems that Richard Kelly didn't just choose October or Halloween for purely aesthetic reasons. He seeks to connect known themes from quantum physics with songs and movies, and the spooky vibes allow him to express this with more style, as Dr. Emmet Brown himself would say in Back to the Future (a movie referred to here).

I always thought Kelly had placed in Donnie a kind of alter ego. Therefore, it is possible that, as a preteen (late 80s), this director was fascinated by science and time travel, while he was enjoying his afternoons with his friends. Perhaps Kelly looked forward to October every year so he could dress up in costumes, watch horror movies, and snoop around abandoned houses.

And that’s another point that this movie reflects very well. Donnie Darko authentically captures those autumn afternoons we used to have fun. Even though Donnie’s friends are not so endearing characters, they have enough charisma.

They accompany Donnie on a bike, help him to make the party, and throw toilet paper at trees. It's all very iconic, just as Kelly might have experienced it in 1988.

By the way, the party scene is, to me, the best of the setting. It is not just the climax of the story, the drama peak, but Kelly introduces a set of unforgettable elements such as the clock, the decorations, the costumes and… My favorite part: when Donnie and Gretchen walk down the stairs holding hands.

Each one of the songs fits here like chocolate chips in a cookie. And because of this film, whenever I listen to the songs by Joy Division and The Church, respectively, it reminds me of this sequence.

Now, an interesting fact: Donnie's party takes place on October 30, not October 31. I always found it funny that there was confusion about the date. Because of this, for many years, my friend had the idea that the world would end on the 31st, but actually, Frank the rabbit said from the beginning that it would happen earlier. I suppose my friend didn't watch it as many times as I did.

Donnie Darko is now synonymous with October, not only because the entire plot takes place during this month, but also because of the images it left behind in popular culture. Today, when I think of Frank the rabbit costume, Halloween comes to my mind. I see a skeleton costume in a store window and think of Donnie (I would also add the gray sweatshirt). Or I hear the soundtrack and I am quickly transported to a decade I didn't live through, with yellow ash trees shedding their leaves around me.

But best of all, it's not just that fall movie I watch every year. Despite the years, it's still that story that accompanies and understands me. Even when I grow old, I'll watch Donnie Darko and remember that nineteen-year-old boy who found a place of peace alongside him.

I know this movie is not as deep or complex as the most enthusiastic fans make it out to be, but for me, it will never cease to be fascinating. If there's one thing I can explain as if I were a professor, it's Donnie Darko.

Donnie Darko2001