Donnie Darko

In 2001, Richard Kelly directed the film "Donnie Darko". There are many explanations to the theory of this film as it revolves around a book Donnie is given by his teacher - a book called "The Philosophy of Time Travel". I feel that this makes the film a psychological thriller. Donnie has a friend named Frank in the story, who in my opinion plays the role of a "Ghost of Christmas Future" type of character. I feel this plays with the conventions of a thriller, most of the time the main character has something he/she distinctly fears, this time he appears to be the friend of Donnie.

At the start of the film we see Donnie laying down at the top of a mountain slowly awakening. There is non-digetic sound at this point, although it is not very noticeable. The sound is some piano keys sounding, which is relaxing, matching the scene and going against the conventions of thriller openings being particularly tense. The mise-en-scene is the titles being played around a lightning storm while a pan takes place, showing the area in which the scene is taking place. Although the sound isn't so unsettling, it does fill us with mystery as we wonder why Donnie is laying down in a storm. When awaking, Donnie starts laughing at his presumed sleepwalking, continuing to fill us with wonder. Usually when seeing this, we think of a psycopathic person, with a derranged laugh, and there are many close-ups showing the facial expression, which is used to good effect. 

The non-digetic sound appears to match the pace of the opening, once Donnie has awoken and starts riding his bike, the music speeds up. This is a good use of non-digetic sounds as it blends in well with the visual part of the opening, and implicitly we expect everything to be unsettlingly normal before the action starts.

In the film, Donnie appears to be uncaring of anything that happens, he is not particularly bothered that he has been sleepwalking, what we do see appears to be odd, however a large part of him is covered up by the lighting. Typically, this shows the villain, but in the film it turns out to be the "hero", this aspect of the film is very unconventional. Due to the fact that it is strange, the audience reaches confusion as the hero and the villain both seem to intertwine within Donnie, and when Frank is around, Donnie appears oblivious to anything else. The characterisation used is very abstract to what we come to expect when usually seeing a thriller film.