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Donnie Darko = Christ Figure?

It took me awhile to figure this one out. Normally one viewing is enough for me to get the Christian view of a movie. I find it in just about every movie I watch. It doesn’t matter whether the writer or directors intended a Christian view or not; I normally see it. It’s as if Christ is impossible to avoid in writing stories about humanity. Perhaps it was the complexity of Donnie Darko that kept me from seeing it until I’d watched it four times. Or better yet, it was the fact that the movie is full of so much that remind you of something thoughtful, something from your youth, something realistically or surrealistically engaging. The details of the movie are so good that you don’t readily see the theme that runs throughout.

Last week, I watched it, and the next morning, it hit me. And it was so obvious, I found it strange that I hadn’t noticed it before. First, there are several key conversations that Donnie has during the movie. They are confrontational, and they involve important people. They involve Donnie making very pointed critiques of things; therefore, they tell us something about Donnie.

Conversation One: When Donnie’s girlfriend (eventually) enters his English class for the first time, he explains the short story by Graham Greene, “The Destructors.” He goes straight to the theme, answering the teacher’s question exactly. It’s about creative destruction.

Conversation Two: When another teacher demands Donnie mark on the “Love-Fear Continuum” where a certain situation falls, he explains to her what is missing in the Continuum, how there’s more to life than just love and fear. He explains to her that life cannot be defined by just one thing; it’s more complicated.

Conversation Three: To his two friends, Donnie explains the Smurfs very concisely and corrects their incorrect understanding of the Smurfs story and characters.

Conversation Four: Twice, Donnie discusses time travel with his science teacher. The first time he learns about Grandma Death and her book and the fact that she had taught at Donnie’s school at one time. During the second conversation, Donnie explains the vector from the chest that shows your set path in life. The teacher says that he’s contradicting himself because if we could see our path, then we could choose a different one. Donnie says, “Not if it’s in God’s plan.” At that point, the teacher tells Donnie he can’t talk anymore about it or he could lose his job. In that conversation, Donnie combined an understanding of time travel or control over time plus the predestinating sovereignty of God.

Conversation Five: When Jim Cunningham, the pseudo-counselor, comes to speak at Donnie’s school, Donnie questions Jim’s economic incentive in speaking to the students, explains that he also has missed the entire connectedness of life in his obsession with love and fear, and accuses him of being anti-Christ.

In these five conversations, Donnie is always on the offense, explaining something the others cannot see, and critiquing their lack. He even critiques his teachers and counselors. He is relentless in his critiques, and we agree with his critiques. Donnie acts as a prophet in these conversations. He also engages in acts of judgment – flooding the school (hints of Noah) because the school is “in great danger” according to Frank, and burning down the house of Jim Cunningham, the anti-Christ. Donnie engages in judgment using the two main biblical methods of massive judgment by God – by water like the great flood, and by fire like the lake of fire of the Book of Revelation. Water and fire are God’s two great judgments on mankind.

Of course, at the end of the movie, Donnie controls time and even life and death, essentially raising his girlfriend from the dead.

Summing up who Donnie is: He’s a prophet because he understands judgment and the interconnectedness of all of life, as shown in his conversations; he speaks judgment and engages in judgment, a God-like attribute; he controls time, another attribute of God, and life and death. However, all of his conversations are nothing but judgment, death-dealing and uncompromising judgment.

The bunny is a sinister character & somewhat hard to pin down. Think about this though. The bunny protects Donnie by leading him from his home before the engine crashes into it. The bunny leads Donnie to perform destructive acts of judgment. But the bunny also disrupts Donnie’s sleep, his state of mind, & even leads him to kill. In protecting him, the bunny stops Donnie from fulfilling his redemptive purpose. “For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it.” Matthew 16:25.  In giving his life, Donnie redeems others; therefore, the bunny is a satanic influence, leading him from that selfless purpose to a purpose of saving himself & one of judging others instead of saving them.

At the end, when Donnie dies, the people to whom he’d spoken judgment seem to wake up, literally & spiritually, knowing something about themselves they could not face before. They experience divine revelation about themselves. Jim Cunningham even appears to be weeping in repentance. Donnie’s death results in redemption for the people he judged, new life for his girlfriend, and he allows himself to die after controlling time, knowing all along that his decision to go back in time would result in his death. Redemption has replaced the judgment these people would have experienced had Donnie not allowed himself to be killed by the jet engine.

Only one other person did something like that. Christ went to the cross, the key to our redemption, knowing his death would happen but voluntarily going anyway. His death resulted in new life and redemption for humanity, which replaced the judgment which we should have experienced. He was a prophet who saw all things clearly.

Finally, there’s the most mysterious statement of all. When Donnie is held to the ground by the drug-abusing thug, just before his girlfriend is run over, he says something that sounds like “Deo macheo” or “Theo macheo.” If he was speaking Greek, the Greek word “theomacheo” or “theomachos” means to fight against God. If Latin, then it sounds like “deo machto.” It sounds to me like he’s using “Deo,” not “Theo,” and “macheo” instead of “machto.” The Greek “Deo” means “to bind together.” So, I’m still not clear on the actual statement. I’ll have to use context, which is always best.

Is he telling the thug that the thug is fighting against God? Or is he saying, “I fight against God.” The latter would not make sense because Donnie was on the ground and on the defensive. It’s hard to understand exactly what he’s saying, but it would make more sense that he’s saying, “You fight against God.” Also, although I am no more than a novice with ancient Greek, it appears that from studying a Greek Concordance (Strong’s) the ending sound, long “o,” could apply to either a 1st person singular or a second person singular use of the Greek verb “mä’-khā.” I choose 2d person, which means he was saying, “You fight against God.”

Donnie Darko is not simply a rebellious, confused teenager trying to figure out his life. Knowing how to judge all whom he encounters, controlling time itself, knowing the future (& altering it), and giving his life for others, he is a Christ figure if there ever was one.