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"We know everything, okay? We're prescient."

2004 PG-13 / Scifi Drama Directed by: Shane Carruth Starring: Shane Carruth, David Sullivan, Casey Gooden

Tagline

What happens if it actually works?

Summary Capsule

Geek power invents a time traveling box, which is perfect for makin' the dough. Didn't we learn anything from Back to the Future Part II?

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Amazon.com: DVD

Justin's Rating: I too have a time travel device. I call it "my bed".
Justin's Review: Shane Carruth wants you to think you're stupid.

It's okay. You're not alone in this attack.

"You could tackle Primer with flow charts and diagrams and the director at knifepoint, and really never be the wiser for it."

Carruth is the writer, director and one of the main stars of a buzzworthy indie called Primer. He's also the answer to the question, "What do you get when you put an elitist Ph.D. behind a movie camera to deal with the complexities of time travel?" His incredibly short yet confounding scifi flick has been making the circuit for a couple years now — my brother Jared actually spotted this one and brought it to my attention — as its look defies the mere $7,000 spent to make it, and the plot therein maddening to people who like films to make, you know, sense.

Filmed in depressingly bleak homes, offices and storage facilities with harsh lights and a never-ending supply of white shirts and ties, Primer follows two engineers who create a "something" box in their garage. It does something, but they're not quite sure what. Only midway through the movie do they figure out what we've known since reading the summary: it's a box that creates the potential for time travel, as long as whatever's inside of it can make a conscious decision to exit the box while it's in the past before it brings the object back to the present. Aaron and Abe, being the emotionless engineers that they are, coolly devise rules (which are never clearly explained) on how to travel in time, and start to utilize bigger versions of the box to make themselves a crapload of moolah.

Following it so far? That's because I'm not writing this the way the movie presents it; if I was, I'd be overlapping my sentences constantly, showing things deliberately out of focus, and spouting so much technobabble at you that it can't help but make you feel like Geordi LaForge is about to step out of the Engine Room to clear things up. By the last act of the film, most people — myself included — are completely lost. Carruth pompously states that it takes a minimum of two viewings to even start to begin to understand what's going on, but this isn't so much credited to his skill with a masterfully thought-out plot, but more because he refuses to explain anything, ever, and deliberately edits scenes to seed confusion in the audience.

Now, I'm the type of guy who spits on both extremes when it comes to intellectualism in film. If you're a filmmaker who sees their audience as cranky three-year-olds who need handholding and simplified plot points, then you earn my derision. Likewise, if you're a filmmaker who's trying so hard to make a work of art that deliberately shoots far, far over the heads of their audience, just so that you can feel superior while the rest of us apes are scratching our armpits in puzzlement, then I have a lemon-lime pie in my fridge, ready for a bit of face-smooshing. I'm all for films being smart, I wish more of them would be. A movie that gets me thinking about it for the next couple days — such as another convoluted, yet clearer time-travel film: Donnie Darko — is to be commended, as long as there is a reasonable explanation that I can arrive at. You could tackle Primer with flow charts and diagrams and the director at knifepoint, and really never be the wiser for it.

Even away from time travel, the movie is glossed with a Fight Club-style of bleakness. Most of the characters interact in minimally decorated rooms, relationships go on with little or no emotion, and soul is remarkably absent from the flick. Even toward the end of the whole thing, when there appears to be a time travel rescue going on (do I need to reiterate that it's not explained and confusing as a barrel of monkeys in your shower?), there's no emotional motivation surrounding Abe and Aaron's actions.

It's a shame, because for all of its last-minute unraveling, Primer shows a gleam of genius in all of the little details. Here, time travel and the boxes take on a more sinister role, far away from other scifi time travel epics where the paradoxes are neatly wrapped up and no one is ever hurt much by it. The small moments — like when one of the characters starts bleeding from his ear and they have no idea if it's a side effect from the box or not — spark the imagination and have us begging for answers that will never come.

Maybe I'm just way off base here. Maybe this is a tribute to all engineers out there. In that case, enjoy. You can have it all.

Cost of sets: $69.99/month with security deposit. Ahh! It's that mind-controlling earworm from Star Trek II! Or, y'know, an earpiece. Engineers often accent their creation with herbs and soothing spices

Didja Notice? [some sources: IMDb]

• Out of date cell phones and laptops are used so that the year of the film can't be guessed.
• The film contains nine timelines and various paradoxes

Is It Worth Staying Through End Credits?

Nope.

Intermission! [some sources: IMDb]

During numerous takes the director, Shane Carruth, mutters "cut" under his breath. According to the DVD commentary, this is due to their extremely low budget which did not allow them to "waste" film. Carruth notes that a total of 80 minutes of footage was shot; the final film is 78 minutes. The film was made for $7000.

Groovy Quotes

Aaron: Are you hungry? I haven't eaten since later this afternoon.

Abe: Aaron, I can imagine no way in which this thing could be considered anywhere remotely close to safe. All I know is I spent six hours in there and I'm still alive... You still want to do it?

Abe: How, how do cell phones work? If, if there's two duplicate phones and I call the same number, do they both ring at the same time, or is there...
Aaron: That's not how it works.
Abe: Yes, it's a radio signal, so it...
Aaron: No, it's a network. The network, the network checks each area. When it finds a phone, it stops ringing. It only, it rings the first one.
Abe: This, this one's ringing.
Aaron: Right.
Abe: So, the one your double has in Russellfield can't be...
Aaron: Right. I think we broke symmetry.
Abe: Are you sure that's how cell phones work?

Aaron: We know everything, okay? We're prescient.

Abe: What's wrong with our hands?
Aaron: [has his arms tightly wrapped around his chest, his hands tight under his armpits] What do you mean?
Abe: [almost shouting] Why can't we write like normal people?
Aaron: [quietly] I don't know. I can see the letters... I know what they should look like, I just can't get my hand to make them easily.
Abe: Try comparing it to your left hand.
Aaron: It's almost the same.

Aaron: Slowly and methodically, he reverse-engineered a perfect moment.

If you liked this movie, try these:

• Back to the Future Part II
• The Philadelphia Experiment
• Pi