Once more I find myself in a position where I have an urge to blog about pure art, and thus also attempting to describe to you in what way “Donnie Darko” is exactly that. It is, to say the least, a difficult, if not impossible task. I shall none the less make a crack at it, so here goes nuthin’: Let me tell you about one of the greatest movies I have ever seen.

Donnie Darko (played by Jake Gyllenhaal) is a troubled teenager who suffers from a syndrome called “paranoid schizophrenia”. He sees things that are not really there. One night he is woken up by a new, imaginary friend named Frank. Frank is a human-sized bunny rabbit that tells Donnie Darko that the world will end in 28 days. Donnie believes him and trusts him (mostly due to the fact that Frank saved his life. A jet turbine crashed into his room only moments after Frank had told Donnie to leave it). An unusual premise for a film, wouldn’t you say?

What follows is one of the most fascinating tales I have ever seen told, with an ending that is appropriately open enough that anyone could probably make up a theory that explained it all, and no theory would be exactly alike. Is “Donnie Darko” a science fiction movie, or is it a tale told from a troubled mind? Nobody knows. What we do know is that is is a fucking fantastic tale which tells us a lot about love, fear and alternate dimensions. I wept when one of the main characters died towards the end, and I didn’t stop weeping until the movie had ended. At first I wept because I thought the scene was so sad that weeping was the least I could do. When the weeping continued, It was because I thought the movie was so great that it was, yet again, the least I could do.

I seem to have been using the phrase “greatest movie ever” a lot lately, but I have truly been watching a lot of great movies. “Donnie Darko” is the best movie I’ve seen this year, and I would have a really hard time if someone asked me to name a movie thats better. I’d have to resort to naming “The Lord of the Rings Trilogy”, which only beats it because I love the book so much. As a movies go, it doesn’t get better than “Donnie Darko”.

Kudos goes out to the casting director for having hired such great actors as the Gyllenhaal siblings and Mary McDonnel (known from BSG). They really were the icing on the cake. Final verdict for “Donnie Darko”: 10/10.