Primer

I like puzzles. I have the kind of mind that naturally gravitates towards solution. Consequently I'm partial to a good convoluted time travel plot and few come more convoluted than Primer.

It's beauty is that despite it's labyrinthine narrative it makes little effort to guide you. Doesn't pause to ensure you understand. The science isn't simplified and the travel itself elaborate (You turn on the box in the morning, get in the box in the evening and arrive in the morning several hours later. That morning that is. Not the next morning. That would be normal. Aside from the box thing.) The film assumes you're clear and just moves right along, often leaving you reeling with some fresh revelation, playing mental catch up within it's cryptic game before tossing you another nugget of crazy. The rate at which these come flying at you from the screen is slow at first, but this sense of security and understanding rapidly comes under bombardment as the film bowls towards it's conclusion. There were a couple of twists I wasn't even close to seeing as I fought to grasp the implications of the previous set of movements.

The experience was fascinating. While I'm reasonably sure I picked up all the pieces as they flew past (or at least I shall from hereafter pretend that I did), it was only in the hours afterwards that they actually fell into coherent order. During the film itself I garnered and assumed only just enough for the story to make sense.

I adore films, films like Primer, for which the thoughts that follow viewing are a vital part of the experience. That understand and appreciate that our engagement with a movie is not limited to the time in which it flashes before us.

By no means is it perfect. There isn't a good deal of acting involved, favouring instead the "saying lines in front of a camera" approach, but I suspect this is in part a conscious effort in aid of the realism. The dialogue is very conversational and often technical, which all adds to the central premise of the accidental invention of the box, but to my mind leaves you struggling to place the motivation that drives the extreme lengths they end up resorting to. This is not a sizable issue either however, the film never holds your hand through explanations, perhaps it is enough to know the actions occurred and the motivation therefor must have been there. Leaving you, once more, to discover the route it has taken.