The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, April 2002 by Spilogale

Author:Spilogale [Spilogale]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Science Fiction/Fantasy
Publisher: www.Fictionwise.com
Published: 2001-10-20T22:00:00+00:00

Films

LUCIUS SHEPARD

DARK, DARKER, DARKO

The way I see it, an unheralded film named Donnie Darko is hands-down the best science fiction movie in quite a few years.

Granted, this verges on damning with faint praise, but actually it's quite a good picture and deserves a much wider audience than it has received.

Darko was not blessed with a massive budget and features neither spaceships nor ethnically stereotyped aliens nor a comic-book plot nor actors in ape makeup, as have the recent top grossers in the genre; but it does possess qualities its rivals lack, i.e., a good script, a complicated and compelling story, and excellent acting. Admittedly, these qualities do not normally translate into box office clout, and the genre's focus being what it is, the Best Film Hugo will probably go to another fan-friendly TV show. But my personal awards, which I believe are no more meaningless than those others, go to Richard Kelly, Darko's first-time director and script writer.

Like the word “irony,” which is habitually and wrongly used to characterize mere coincidence, the nature and meaning of the term “black comedy” is often misapprehended. Thus it is that American Beauty, perhaps the most self-congratulatory film in the history of the motion picture, a pompous art-statement made by folks who wouldn't recognize art if it stuck its tongue down their throat, has been labeled a black comedy, whereas it is in actuality a tired and pretentious social satire that launches a labored attack on the wages of consumerism (a blatant hypocrisy, considering its origin at DreamWorks) and concludes with a voiceover narrated by a dead man telling us how he wouldn't change a thing about his life, which included alienation from his wife, the contempt of his children, a joyless job, a self-destructive infatuation with a cheerleader, and his subsequent murder at the hands of a deranged homophobe/homosexual. The imperatives of black comedy demand a less deluded resolution and permit no such sappy epiphanies. By any definition, however, Donnie Darko is a black comedy, albeit a most unconventional one that juxtaposes concerns with mental problems, troubled teenagers, families, the ‘80s, time travel, and the institutions of self-help, high school, and psychiatry, and somehow manages to juggle all this material and achieve an allusive beauty. And unlike most black comedies, Darko is hilariously funny.

The title character, played by Jake Gyllenhaal (Homer Hickam in October Sky), is a bright suburban teenager currently on medication and undergoing therapy for undefined psychological problems that manifest in sleepwalking and the occasional act of arson. He also receives visits from an imaginary (or perhaps not so imaginary) friend named Frank who wears the dirt-smeared costume of a heavy metal Easter Bunny with pupil-less eyes, ferocious teeth, and antlerlike ears. One night after being summoned from his dreams by Frank, Donnie sleepwalks, and Frank tells him that he has traveled back from the future to warn him that the world will end in slightly more than twenty-eight days. After sleeping until morning on a golf course, Donnie returns home

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.