TRIBUTES AND RETROSPECTIVES

Double Take

Donnie Darko

Richard Kelly
2001 - United States - 1h53

Screenings : tuesday 23 - 10:00 am - Pathé - 2 - presented by Jean-Michel Frodon - journalist and film critic

Middlesex, Iowa, 1988. Donnie Darko is a 16 year-old unlike other 16-year-olds. Introverted and disturbed, he is friends with Frank, a giant rabbit that only he can see and hear. One night when Donnie is woken up by the voice of his imaginary friend who tells him to follow him, he miraculously escapes from a potentially fatal accident. At the same time, Frank tells him that the end of the world is about to come. From this point, Donnie obeys the voice and causes a series of events which turns upside down the whole of the community…

The first feature of American director Richard Kelly, made when he was only 26, Donnie Darko is the blend of a melancholic teen movie and a fantasy thriller in the psyche of a teenager. Donnie Darko stems from a sort of dreamlike experience since its hero seems to react as if in a waking dream. By blurring the line between dream and reality, Richard Kelly portrays the state of floating between the worlds of childhood and adulthood. In his first major role on screen, Jake Gyllenhaal gives an ambiguous performance: now apathetic, now angry, gentle with his girlfriend Gretchen, but terrible with his family. Donnie Darko is impressive with its stylistic mastery leaning as much towards David Lynch as to MTV. Largely influenced by Philip K. Dick, his portrait of a typical provincial American town, the theatre of all kinds of weirdness, would become a source of inspiration for other independent American filmmakers such as Gregg Araki with Mysterious Skin and David Robert Mitchell with The Myth of American Sleepover.

CAST AND CREW

Cast : Jake Gyllenhaal, Holmes Osborne, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Daveigh Chase, Mary McDonnell, James Duval, Arthur Taxier, Patrick Swayze
Screenplay : Richard Kelly
Cinematography : Steven Poster
Editing : Sam Bauer, Eric Strand
Music : Michael Andrews

Production : Pandora Cinema, Flower Films, Adam Fields Productions, Gaylord Films

French distributor : Carlotta