I rewatched the cult-classic Donny Darko recently after probably about 20 years since I last saw it. I remember it being the kind of film that was popular among teenagers and I think it might be because it grappled with themes such as identity and emotional angst intertwined with existential matters such as personal and pre-determined destinies with constructs of time and space. Donny Darko was released in 2001 and stars Jake Gyllenhaal. As I watched the film I was pleasantly surprised by the presence of Maggie Gyllenhaal who plays his sister, Drew Barrymore who plays the inspirational teacher, Patrick Swayze playing a kind of cult leader and Seth Rogan as the bully.
This reflection will not cover all aspects of the film and though I won't reveal all details, there are still spoilers! This story and reflection also contains reference to life and death which some may find unsettling.
This film is artistically directed and open to interpretation, I imagine there are many different lenses with which to conclude something meaningful and profound. Here I thought it demonstrates a lovely example of repression and I thought it might be interesting to see how my ideas around this initial bit of inspiration evolve as I write this blog, let's see where we end up...
Who is Donny?
Donny is a teenager who is portrayed as a misfit. His parents encourage him to see a hypnotherapist. When he is at school he observes others but doesn't seem to follow a crowd. At home, he fights with his sister and uses choice language to provoke and antagonise. His parents seem loving and responsive and yet Donny doesn't seem to have a place within him to reciprocate this.
Where is Donny?
At the beginning of the film, Donny's sister opens the fridge and the door opens into the viewers face so we can see 'Where is Donny?' written on a small white board tacked to the fridge. I wonder whether this is the essence of the story. Where is he? Is he living in the same reality as everyone else or is he lost in a world of hallucination and delusion? Alternatively, is Donny's world one in which he can see beyond our vision of time - the here and now - instead he is able to witness movements of energy, predicting the future.
Awareness and repression as a means of survival
I consider repression a necessary way of making sense of a complex and inherently chaotic, unpredictable world. We can't be aware of everything all the time and our minds simply do not allow for this. Firstly, our brains are history organs so they assume that what has happened in a similar situation before will occur again. Secondly, our brains use up lots of energy and in order to make good use of this energy we have shortcuts. We do not see things as they are in all their entirety and apply biases. Unconsciously. Taken together, this means we instinctively apply assessments of what we experience based on what is familiar, predictable and comfortable with the world we feel certain about. Any change in this sense of certainty, any shift, causes discomfort and we revert back to using our brains to rid ourselves of this. We are pattern-seeking creatures of habit.
Patterns and Cognitive Analytic Therapy
Within the CAT approach is an acceptance of these principles and a way of working with our biases. Bringing them into conscious awareness through a therapeutic relationship we can come to see spaces between our sensory experiences and what we perceive. We can experiment with new ways of perceiving, new ways of just being outside of the familiar ways of seeing and understanding what is happening to us. We can create space for uncertainty rather than be so sure of what we are doing which leaves us liable to retaining blindspots and biases.
I imagine this is where defence mechanisms are useful - denial lets us live in the version of reality that confirms the one we want to live in, intellectualisation allows us to reason our way out of discomfort and repression helps keep what we cannot bear away from our consciousness.
Defences and Donny’s dystopian days
Donny lives - what seems like - a miserable, moody existence and he is in therapy.
When therapy feels safe, whatever is repressed may surface. It can feel quite destabilising when this happens. In Donny Darko his therapist creates a hypnotic state for this to occur. When Donny is hypnotised, he expresses different thoughts, feelings and versions of himself which are ordinarily not accessible to him or evident to others. He portrays many things: being aroused, frightened, comfort-seeking, sadistic. He connects with whatever is under the surface while under hypnosis - whether it be for 'good' or 'evil' or anything in between and his usual façade slips away momentarily. Are these repressed parts of himself which can only surface once he loses touch with his conscious mind? What is the result of momentarily bringing these to awareness?
Donny’s change of experience of himself, and in relation to another (his therapist) seems to be enough to alter a pattern of relating. He becomes more outwardly seeking of interaction and information, more lively and interested in the world.
Another angle is that Donny also connects with a death instinct. It could be said he does this when he engages with harmful desires which leads him to commit crimes whilst asleep. One crime he repeats is arson. The symbolism of fire and desire is too obvious to ignore here. Donny seems not to have any control over this urge to destroy and cause damage but it turns out it comes from a place of vengeance.
Connecting with desires
Possibly bringing to awareness something that has been repressed, such as a desire or longing could lead to different choices becoming available. One thing that interested me about the film was the version of reality Donny exists in where he has a romantic connection with someone. One consequence is when a relationship evolves quite naturally when he is just being himself.
However, the way the story goes, Donny chooses to opt out of this version of events when he goes back to bed knowing this decision will mean he is in his bedroom at the time when part of an aeroplane falls onto his bedroom. It is as if the romance and all preceding events never happened. Could this be because he was opting not to replay events that lead to her death?
The one thing I have wondered about from this film is how we all interact with the 'good' and 'bad' parts of ourselves, when we allow space and create safety for repressed desires to surface, how can we acknowledge them as valid parts of ourselves? In CAT theory, it is understood that we are multiple selves, depending on conditions which give rise to different ways of being. We can be induced or conditioned to reciprocate a way of being if it exists within our repertoire and we can repress or suppress a way of being too.
All these differences in how we engage with others and ourselves have arisen from a place of adaptation to a need. Sometimes they continue despite the original conditions changing. In therapy we create a way to notice, name and negotiate with all our different ways of relating and find space to create new ones which may serve us better. In time, the previous ones that are less relevant to our current circumstances become less dominant.
In stillness and the space created by not reverting to familiar patterns of relating, we can give rise to something new to emerge.
Perhaps it was there all along and has been repressed because prior conditions were not suitable for us to be that way? Perhaps, like Donny, teenage angst covers up our desires and they are hidden away, cloaked in shame? There can be another way, we can be another way.
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