Primer (2004)


A big difference between the original Doctor Who series and the current is that, during its first 20-year-and-some run, the show revolved around ideas rather than spectacle.  A good portion of the newer series carried the ideas forth but, for a long time, the effects have been a cornerstone of the revived version rather than the inventive stories.  The show was originally forced to do so because of the lack of budget that the BBC had to make s weekly sci-fi series of that magnitude, but it soon became a hallmark of the show.  

Although there are pulp science fiction novels the majority of the classics are the same way.  They dwell on philosophical or actual scientific speculation.  Sometimes the ideas get ahead of the characters but they remain interesting even without giant space battles.  Such is Primer, a time-travel movie made by writer, director, producer, editor, composer and actor Shane Carruth as his debut film.  With just a $7000.00 budget Primer has remained the source of discussion and puzzlement for over two decades.

Abe (David Sullivan) and Aaron (Carruth) both work for a tech company along with their friends Robert (Casey Gooden) and Phillip (Anand Upadhyaya).  They are building a machine for unknown purposes in their garage.  Abe and Aaron start to realize the physics of what they are doing and, locking the other two out as they work on their project, they build a machine with a strong electromagnetic field.  After discovering that a fungus has grown on Weeble they have been testing in the machine - a fungus that should have taken about five years - they discover that the field the machine creates loops back upon itself.

The discovery leads Abe to build two larger machines in a storage facility.  Or, at least, a version of him does, and the two discover that the idea has already been realized by one of Abe's doubles.  From there they hatch a plan to spend time in the boxes and time isolated in a hotel room, allowing them to build up enough knowledge to make it rich off of stock trades.  Unfortunately, Aaron has plans of his own to use the machines to right a situation involving a woman named Rachel (Samantha Thompson), and it is possible that there is a third element involved as someone may have discovered their secret. 

Primer can be a bit frustrating as one is expected to follow all the twists and turns, a number of which Carruth doesn't provide answers to nor pursue.  The movie was in planning stages for a long period of time and, during the short window for filming, pretty much everything was done in one take.  Unlike a lot of movies like this that allow for improvisation and then assembly of the movie from what is good, this is pretty much, except for a technical issue here and there that had to be cut, what was filmed.  

At the heart is the usual story about two friends coming up with a scheme that ultimately destroys their relationship, but there is a bit more to it when one starts to question many of the moves the two make and how much their meddling may have caused issues for everyone else in their lives.  It also touches on certain aspects of obsession with the last few shots at the end. 

The thing one has to get past is that, being that this was filmed as it was, there are no big displays of practical or digital effects, no car chases, no knock-down drag-out fights.  A good portion of the movie is Abe and Aaron discussing their plans and executing them, thus relying on chemistry and acting skills from a pair that were pretty much amateurs when it came to making a movie.  There are issues, and not only does the story get clearer but the imperfections show a second time through.  Still, it is amazing what was accomplished with this.

Primer (2004)
Time: 77 minutes
Starring: Shane Carruth, David Sullivan, Casey Gooden, Anand Upadhyaya
Director: Shane Carruth

 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Eyes Without a Face (1960)

Image
A large portion of the world likes being scared.  This seems to be one thing we all share.  At some point when there were just a few homo sapiens gathered around a fire I am sure they told stories of old Gak who had his arm replaced with a mammoth tusk and terrorized some teenagers making outside of camp when they should have been hunting and gathering.  Everyone enjoys a good scare. Except, apparently, for the French.  Eyes Without a Face came out square in the middle of the French New Wave, a series of films that guys in the late 1950s and early 1960s pretended to understand to impress their girlfriends.  In contrast Georges Franju's film was pretty straightforward.  Although he nominally was more interested in exploring depression and loss, the framework was that of a typical mad scientist film.  However, Franju's surrealist touches set it aside from normal b-movie fare.   Dr. Génessier (Pierre Brasseur) is a brilliant surgeon working in t...
Read more

The Resurrected (1991)

Image
Dan O'Bannon was known for a few things, other than being extremely difficult to work with.  He cowrote and co-starred in Dark Star , wrote Alien and directed The Return of the Living Dead .  Because of the latter he has his own version of zombies named after him.  While he had issues he wasn't the only one in his field that did, and his supposed problems seem tame when compared with a lot of eccentric directors.  Whatever the case, he had early success with his movies and was considered to be quite brilliant.  Therefore, it is a bit of surprise that he only directed two feature films and one of those is almost impossible to find.  Private investigator John March (John Terry) is contacted by Claire Ward (Jane Sibbett) to find out what her husband Charles (Chris Sarandon) is up to.  He has been acting strange as of late and recently moved into an old farmhouse in rural Rhode Island that had once been owned by a  man named Joseph Curwen (Sarandon)....
Read more

Looper (2012)

Image
Looper  was writer and director Rian Johnson's third feature film and first major success.  A major departure from the movie he had done prior, it required immense worldbuilding, a major amount of attention to making the time travel plot plausible and the ability to do so on only a moderate budget.  However, it was a gamble that paid off in major ways for Johnson, at least in the short term. Joe (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is a looper, which is basically a hired assassin who takes care of people that a crime syndicate 30 years in the future wants gone.  They send them back to his time - a dismal, dystopian United States in 2044 - to be shot, for which he earns silver bars that he can spend.  What he mainly spends it on is whores and drugs, but it's because he knows that, in the end, he will have to close his own loop.  That means ultimately killing an older version of himself. When Joe's friend Seth (Paul Dano) faces just that and fails he is asked by local crim...
Read more