After I was introduced to the concept of Postmodernism, I've noticed many examples of it in my day-to-day life. I found it very interesting that this concept came about society after WWII. The fact that at any moment during the war a bomb could go off and obliterate entire populations made philosophers question reality. The movie Donnie Darko puts the main character (fittingly, Donnie Darko) into an entire alternate (tangent) universe where he has to figure out how to close it before the primary universe collapses. Donnie doesn't know that he's in the tangent universe until much later in the movie.
The tangent universe is very complex . Donnie needs the help from many different viewpoints. In Postmodernism complexity and multiplicity relate to this: no single person can explain/understand something entirely and having to see multiple points of view to get the picture. The tangent universe also relates to Postmodernism in that it is corrupted space. The true or real space is the primary universe.
The first viewpoint he gets is from Frank; his messenger and savior. The night that Donnie was supposed to die, Frank communicated with him somehow mentally to come away from his house. He also tells Donnie when the world will end (when the primary universe will collapse). Donnie would have died by being crushed by a jet engine falling from the sky. This relates to a bomb in WWII- a sudden and unexpected death from new technology. Because Donnie doesn't die from the engine, he gets put into the tangent universe and is destined to bring the engine back to the primary universe (the engine is the artifact that Donnie, the receiver, has to get killed by before the primary universe collapses).
The second viewpoint is from the seemingly senile old lady Roberta Sparrow and the book she wrote. The "seemingly" relates to Postmodernism in that it's impossible to have (historical) authenticity. Her book explains the workings of the tangent universe. When discussed about with Donnie's parents, his dad dismisses the book as nothing more than something written by a crazy old lady. Donnie's general being in the primary universe was even questioned as mentally unstable. This is shown by him being in therapy sessions and having to take pills. His visions of Frank in the tangent universe are dismissed as part of his "schizophrenia" and taken to be dealt with by the therapist.
When Donnie returns the artifact (jet engine) into the primary universe by letting himself be killed by it when it falls, all of the people he interacted with in the tangent universe have a feeling that something major happened at the time Donnie dies. They don't know anything that happened in the tangent universe because Donnie technically went back in time when he returned the artifact. The goals of the people were to guide him back to the primary universe (saving it from collapsing). Going between the future and present makes us within memory, which is another aspect of Postmodernism. The people somehow remember Donnie subconsciously, but can't make the connection out of that.
Connecting the movie Donnie Darko to Postmodernism gave me insight into how reality cannot be truly defined. For all that I know, we could be living in some sort of tangent universe that could suddenly collapse another universe. The concepts of Postmodernism became less implausible and radical after I realized how often they show up in our society today. I wasn't expecting one of my favorite movies to have the possibility of being real according to Postmodernism.
"The tangent universe also relates to Postmodernism in that it is corrupted space"
ReplyDeleteexplain what you mean by 'corrupted space' in relation to your thinking. Im curious as to where/how you formulated that idea.
sidenote: i just watched this last night and had a very different interpretation of it than you did. I see that that the boy is finding himself lost in a post-modern world (shifting reality) which is at odds with the evangelical 80's (dualism) world around him (notice how odd and colourful everyone but the teens are) and having non-one to guide him through it. It's the collision of a world that he doesnt even realize that he's in (what's wrong with me) and that from which he no-longer belongs (note every reference to evangelicalism in the movie, including the whole "fear and love" focus (an evangelical dualism).
I found it significantly sad that at the end he would need to die to sort things out (in other words the author didnt seem to think that at the time they could be reconciled). Frank (his own psyche) was the source from which he could escape the strange world (prevalent society) around him and prove to himself that he's not crazy and evil. Yet Frank would ultimately make him go crazy - his own salvation would be the thing that destroys him and he has to make the choice of destroying his salvation and saving himself or embracing it and losing himself in its midst. If this is Donnie choosing between the red or blue pill, than he chose the blue.... the positive note is that he came to a place of being able to make that decision for himself and made it in confidence.