Oh what a little gumption can do. Shane Carruth wrote, directed, produced and starred in this 2004 film that chronicles two tech geeks' experiments with time travel. His total budget? $7,000. What's that you say? A film about time travel for only $7,000? Are the special effects cheesy as hell? How many more rhetorical questions will I ask in this post? (My journalism professors are turning in their proverbial graves.)
Well, there are no special effects. No, ladies and gentlemen, this movie doesn't rely on CGI to move its storyline along. It relies on things like a great story line, excellent acting and some superb editing (how about those positive adjectives).
Primer follows two engineers who are trying to build a zero gravity device when they realize they've accidentally built a time machine. The film moves quickly, with the characters talking about things the audience probably doesn't understand (unless they are engineers) without stopping to explain. They talk in quick mutters, referring to past events that we don't know about and to people we have never met. This makes the film so believable, so real to life, that you wonder if it is a documentary (the lazy cam filming adds to the effect). It is just two engineers trying to figure out what they've built and how to control it. There is no made up metal or electrical force or giant gizmo that no one could ever create to serve as the time portal. It's just a box. Something so simple yet so believable that you don't even miss the special effects, in fact, you don't even wonder where they are.
The story twists in and out and if you aren't paying attention it is easy to get lost, but that is the fun in it. You are supposed to be lost, the main characters are too. The plot works around theories of time travel, and the consequences of it, in a realistic manner. Well, as realistic as I can imagine time travel to be.
I wanted to say that before Primer I didn't think I had seen a truly remarkable film about time travel. But then I did some research and found some great time travel movies, like Flight of the Navigator, 12 Monkeys, Terminator (how could I forget) and the Philadelphia Expirement. These were all great time travel movies, but Primer stands out among them and proves that low budget can mean very high quality. Maybe that's the line you should use on the corner, Anthony.
-Dabs
I rented this one probably about 4 years ago, picked it up from the shelves of Movie Gallery on a whim. Watched it, I wanted to like it, but I couldn't.
ReplyDeleteMaybe I need to watch it again, but one thing that stands out in my mind was how god-awful the quality of the film was. Muted/mumbled/multiple conversations at once, I mean if they were shooting for a "real life" feel. They got it right. To bad that when I watch a movie I don't want to feel as if I am listening through a room of other conversations to get what is going on it the dialoge.
I get it though, it was done on $7,000...it's not about the smooth, polished, blow your mind effects. But I just couldn't make it past the shot in the basement feel of it.
After I was done watching, it seems like the director would have a smug grin on his face, he would then raise a condescending eyebrow, and asked me if I got it. Does it realy need that much technical talk? It's possible to watch the entire movie, follow what is going on, and not know a single thing that is said during these "rants". But it leaves a bit of a what did I miss feeling.
I think the feel of the movie is a turn off for a lot of people, hence its relative obscurity.
ReplyDeleteI do have to disagree with you on the dialogue. It's a smart, steadily moving dialogue that doesn't stop for the ridiculous explanations that so many movies turn to now a days.
I thought the crowded room conversations added an intensity and feeling of paranoia that was original - other movies left me with a similar feeling but they didn't get me there by doing it in this manner. It was more subtle.
Primer also lends more mystery to the mystery that is time travel. It doesn't try to be anything else but a movie about time travel. It doesn't try to be an action flick with a time travel plot, which is what most good time travel movies rely on.
The movie sort of sticks to the formula that many science fiction novelists follow, which is to flesh out a theory to provide a possible cause instead of relying on deux ex machina to fill in all the blanks for you.
The movie asks for a lot out of its audience, I won't deny that. And that played into my decision to put it as a gem rather that in the Hall of Fame.
Great Obscure Gem Mikey... you beat me to making the first ever movie obscure gem you magnificent prick.
ReplyDeleteArn, I don't mean to be a jerk but your post is more wrong than Hitler.
Primer is everything that I want my sci-fi movies to be (see my Top 5 Alternative Sci-Fi Flicks list for more of these)... gone is the pomp and effects, what we have is a ponderous film that is more about the ramifications of time travel rather than how many robots we can kill in the future.