Between the Worlds of the Living and the Dead

Abstract

Stay, directed by Marc Forster, and Donnie Darko, directed by Richard Kelly, rise issues concerning different states of human life. Both films visualise different psychic stages their characters go through. “Between the worlds of the living and the dead there is a place you’re not supposed to stay” claims the poster of Stay, which suggests the idea that human beings are not only living or dead but also experience intermediate states between these two basic stages. This motto points out that everybody goes through these states as a gate or a bridge as they lead from life to death, but, since they are only for passage, people are not allowed nor supposed to stop here... (Introduction)