They made me Do It: The Mad world of Donnie Darko

Donny Darko is one of the most popular media narrative taught in Australian secondary schools. In this article, Trainer explores how Richard Kelly's debut feature cuts across the preestablished boundaries and divisions such as genre and audience. Donny Darko is seen as a critical and profoundly political film, 'emphasising the opposition between the moral surface values of middle-class America and the subversion that lies beneath it.' Trainers point out that 'Donnie Darko uses the phenomenon of time travel as a metaphor and a catalyst for the coming of age, encapsulating a young man's desire fo love, his challenging of his world and his evolving personal awareness and individual politics.' He discusses the portrayal of Donnie as a martyr, prompting themes of redemption and fate, and explores the use of popular music signifying temporal location and delivering emotional effect. In the closing paragraphs, special emphasis is placed on the settings, the use of camera and the central dramatic motivation of the film accentuating the main thematic concerns of the filmmaker.