A film review

While at Dan and June's place for Sunday roast three days ago, we went down to the video shop to pick out two DVDs to watch after the meal. One of them was I "heart" Huckabees, which I didn't actually stick around to see afterwards, and the other one was 'Primer'.

This is a science fiction movie with serious difference. I had heard good things about it - it has won awards at Sundance - and I had meant to see it when it first was released but had never got around to it, so when I saw it at the video shop, out we got it, and after the meal, we threw it on.

*Great endeavours to exclude spoilers follow*

This is a story centred around two engineers, who while working on a project in their spare time, end up devising something that was quite accidental and definitely mind-blowing, and how to react to this discovery. Revealing a part of the plot, the discovery is that of time travel. Once they realise what they're holding, they begin to experiment with it, and without giving too much away, this is where the shit hits the fan.

The one BIG difference between this film, and other films about time travel, is that this one has what I think is the most realistic treatment of what would happen if such a thing existed. In all other films, such as Terminator (1, 2, or 3) and The Butterfly Effect, to name but a few, certain elements of improbability are glossed over for the sake of keeping the plot from spiralling into the realms of mystifying complexity. Dumbing down? Maybe, but it kept the film ticking over.

This one takes everything into account, with scant regard for whether the viewer is able to follow the plot threads ('a recursive problem', as one of the characters says) or not. Given that certain events in the film are precipated by the actions of the main characters where they have travelled back from a later time section in the film to witness that certain event at which their earlier selves were also present (if you...erm...know what I mean), the shit is simply confused out of everything. At one point during the film, Dan, who is one of the smartest people I know, turned around with a big smirk on his face and said "Right. Does anyone know what's going on?"

The experiment inherent in this film is admirable, but I'm not altogether sure if it succeeds. Sometimes (quite often, I'd wager) a film is quite simply better off reflecting a slightly fantastical version of events, no matter how worthy it purports to be, for the sake of the overall artistic statement. I'll have to take my hat off to that director, though, who used to be a work in various engineering firms before quitting, teaching himself film making, and then pulling this off three years later.

As someone who used to do engineering in college, and who worked an an allied domain for quite some time, I must say his representation of the people working on the device, and the process of the discovery itself, is spot on. Apart from anything else, it shows how what is fundamentally a very interesting area of intellectual endeavour can be reduced by soulless corporations to the preserve of worker drones. This is a thriller without the usual signposts of build-up and climax and it's definitely staking out new territory that way. It should definitely be slapped on all undergrad courses in film.

So that's it. It's hot stuff, but it should carry an Intellectual Advisory sticker on it, and that's coming from someone who likes maths and related technical concepts. As it is, I'll definitely need to see it again, or at least read the script, if it's up on the net by now.