Donnie Darko
Genre: Psychological Thriller
Director: Richard Kelly
Writers: Richard Kelly
A troubles teenager is plagues by visions of a large bunny rabbit that manipulates him to commit a series of crimes, after narrowly escaping a bizarre accident.
Analysis:
The movie starts with the sponsors being shown as non-diegetic thunder sound starts to play, this creates a pathetic fallacy as we feel on edge and uncomfortable. After the sponsors have been shown the title sequence starts. It starts with a black screen and the typography is in a strange font, this strange font emphases the eerie mood created by the thunder. This title sequence then fades into a tracking ELS of a landscape, this familiarises us the the location of the scene. The same tracking shot then moves towards a man laying in the middle of a road and who seems to be asleep (Donnie) this tracking shot still moves until it is close enough to be a mid shot, this again is establishing us with the location and now also a character (Probably the main character) This tracking shot includes 3 different type of shot, an ELS, a LS and a MS. The non-diegetic sound fo the thunder stopped as the title sequence did and now a piano starts to play, this non-diegetic sound is still building up the surreal eerie feel making us feel uncomfortable. The MS of Donnnie then cuts a an ELS pan of the landscape, again this is familiarising us with the location and it shows us that he is alone. The pan stops then this character that was asleep rises from the bottom of the screen this mid shot is establishing us with the character, he walks out of the shot then the title fades in this shows the audience who the character is.
The use of the strange font mixed with the non-diegetic thunder and the fact that donnie is laying in the middle of the road alone then laughes to himself really gives an eerie feel and makes the audience uncomfortable.
