Primer [M]

Four backyard scientists are working on a project, two of which are putting in more hours and effort than the others. These two, Abe and Aaron discover that they have inadvertently created a sort of working time machine that allows them to replay time by creating doppelgangers. Whilst Abe plays it safe and makes sure his doppelganger relives the same experiences that he did during the replayed time whilst he works out the mechanics of the entire phenomenon, Aaron is already thinking ahead and making plans for the future. 

What a bizarre little film this is. Its duration is just over one hour, it’s a small-budget debut from writer/director Shane Carruth, and essentially nothing happens the entire time aside from a few thrilling moments where the audience can decipher the scientific jargon that dominates the script and actually work out what’s going on. That’s not to say that this is a bad film though. The story is actually rather clever and it lends itself to a fair amount of psychological as well as science fiction interpretation. What keeps the audience seated and rapt for the entire duration is their natural desire or need to understand what is going on. I look at this movie and I see a piece of work that plays to one of the most primal of human characteristics: the need to understand. Poetry as a collective phenomenon uses this; if you want a good one check out Starlings, Broad Street, Trenton, 2003 by Paul Muldoon. It’s one of the most obscure poems in literary history, but we read it and reread it because we blatantly refuse to be beaten by a group of words! We keep reading and rereading it to find out what it’s actually talking about, to understand it! The same principal is adopted here in Primer. It’d be easy to accept that this movie is too weird and hard to understand and then just turn it off and whack something else on. BUT WE DON’T! We sit there, stewing, and glaring at the screen without blinking, trying to find the meaning in the entire thing. It’s a clever little piece of cinema when you think about it in those terms. Playing to primal human characteristics is something that the best filmmakers do: just look at Hitchcock and Kubric. 

Four backyard scientists are working on a project, two of which are putting in more hours and effort than the others. These two, Abe and Aaron discover that they have inadvertently created a sort of working time machine that allows them to replay time by creating doppelgangers. Whilst Abe plays it safe and makes sure his doppelganger relives the same experiences that he did during the replayed time whilst he works out the mechanics of the entire phenomenon, Aaron is already thinking ahead and making plans for the future. 

Basically this movie is founded on a solid and original story idea. I particularly like the psychological repercussions and the thriller genre angle that it takes rather than, say, The Time Machine which just highlights the various ways and inevitability of humankind screwing themselves up in the long term. 

The layers that make up this movie are various. We’ve got this tough script that is filled with scientific jargon and a little hard to understand if you’re like me and need a moment of simplified dialogue to gain some plot clarity. We then have these solid performances from the cast, which also doubles as the crew. I admire the smaller films like this where multiple talents is a driving force. These little independent movies have got something that audiences love; just look at the Blair Witch Project. The thriller aspect of the film comes into play right at the very end, so the audience is slightly rewarded for its long and patient wait in the car whilst the parents zip into the chemist (just an image). Although it has to be said that this movie does leave a lot up to the imagination and powers of interpretation, yes, this can be a great thing, but it can also be a bad thing. In this case, I’m not sure which. 

Starring Shane Carruth, David Sullivan, Casey Gooden, Anand Upadhyaya, Carrie Crawford, Samantha Thomson, and Chip Carruth, Primer is a strange, but clever little movie filled with science fiction and drama that I appreciated and found intriguing, but I don’t think I could go as far as to say that I liked it. It’s a “you shall not pass” situation: neither a win nor lose.