REVIEW: PRIMER

First, let’s set some ground rules here. This review will not be an extensive analysis and dissection of this film, although God knows I want to write something like that. The hours and hours I have spent thinking about this movie will hopefully pay off in something like that. Or an aneurysm – there’s even money on this.

Second rule is that this review will contain minor spoilers. You should go into this movie as blind as possible, and if you decide to do that, just read this next sentence and come back here after having seen the movie: Primer is one of the best movies of the year, one of the best if not the best science fiction movie in memory, is a vindication of indie DIY filmmaking at the highest level, and is an intriguing and mindfucking movie that explores moral and philosophical ground while simultaneously playing with the norms and standards of linear narrative storytelling.

OK, if you’re still reading you’re going to have expect some mild spoilers. I really don’t want to ruin this movie for you, though, so I will play it fairly close to the vest. Here’s the basics of the plot: Abe and Aaron are friends, engineers, who spend their time in the garage trying to hammer out new patents. They want to make something that will make them rich and while trying to create some sort of a device that can make objects lighter (the concept is that it would revolutionize shipping and travel), they accidentally invent a time machine.

The mechanics are complicated, but the machine allows them to travel back in time a few hours. They immediately begin using it to play the stock market. In fact, it’s the very first thing they do with it. Soon, though, things begin to get darker as the true level of power inherent in even limited time travel becomes obvious. And that’s before they realize they can take the machines back in time with them.

To me Primer is divided into three elements: the filmmaking, the characters and the puzzle narrative. The filmmaking is almost a tour de force. For seven thousand dollars, probably less than your car cost, director Shane Carruth has made a film with an eerie beauty and a cinematic sensibility where no shot is wasted and every shot means something. Scenes are constantly overexposed so that Aaron and Abe, in their white short sleeve shirts and ties, the uniform of math nerds, walk through a glowing radioactive post modern world. It’s today’s suburbs, but there’s a decaying quality to everything, like the planet has just run out of steam and is slowly edging to the sun. There are shots in the film that are framed with sheer brilliance, and that’s the first indication you get that this is the debut of a major new talent.

Did I mention that this is Carruth’s first film, and he wrote it, directed it, stars in it, did the music for it, had his parents cater it, etc etc etc? The guy’s all over the film, and is in every single possible sense of the word an auteur.

As I said before, Carruth stars in the film, playing Aaron. He does a fine job but his costar David Sullivan steals the show. This guy has a natural ease to him that just envelops every scene. He needs to be working with Steven Soderbergh more or less immediately. The two play best friends and they have a great chemistry.

What’s special about the characters in Primer is that they don’t need to be in a science fiction story. As the film goes on and they discover the levels they will each stoop when using the device, their friendship crumbles and suspicion and paranoia become the only thing they share. The dynamic of this relationship could be just as easily acted out in any scenario – Abe and Aaron could have figured out a non-time machine way to manipulate the stock market, perhaps – and the film would probably be just as gripping. These characters are the center of the story, and it’s their decisions that drive the film. While the buzz on Primer is that it’s puzzle based, that’s not a fair thing to say. It’s a character driven film that happens to have a puzzle-like narrative. Removing the complexity of the narrative leaves you with two compelling characters who could hold up an entire film on their own.

But why would you want to remove the complexity of the narrative? To me this is the least important aspect of the film – I am much more interested in what the movie has to say about the characters and how they deal with the device (in an incredibly telling scene Aaron says that he doesn’t think about the paradoxes that could arise from time travel, that he figures it will all work itself out. That laissez faire approach to metaphysics is the same approach he has to morality, and as his greed consumes him (and not just a greed for money, there’s a greed for adulation and the ability to play the hero), the movie makes dark commentary on a world where the profitability of science is put far ahead of the morality of its use). But still, the puzzle of the film is a treat to the thinking filmgoer, something to really wrap your head around. And it makes the movie a film that you really must see at least twice.

The first time I saw Primer I kind of let it wash over me. The first half hour is pretty straightforward, with the guys working in the garage. Even this straightforward section confronts you, though, since everyone talks quickly, naturalistically and in complete science nerd jargon (I hate stealing other critic’s lines and crediting them with it, but the Village Voice’s Dennis Lim nails it when he says the dialogue is like “David Foster Wallace rewriting David Mamet.” I mean, that is spot on.). You let this stuff wash over you and figure out the relationships and concepts. Then when the device is turned on in the second act, things get complicated.

The duo have to keep abreast of the doubles that are created when they travel in time. Bringing back a cell phone is possibly disastrous. Slowly we begin to realize that we haven’t seen everything there is to see, and the scenes and scene transitions become more complicated. You have to keep on your toes because every minute of this short film counts, there’s not a wasted frame.

Finally the third act sees the narrative structure breaking down completely. Just when you think you’ve got a grip on how the device works and what these guys are doing with it you realize that there are devices within devices and a backup device that allows them to travel back to the very beginning of the film. Here the film starts looping back on itself, although it remains technically linear –we’re revisiting previous scenes with the time machine, and now that attention you paid is paying off big time.

Until it all falls apart, that is. I won’t say much more but the last fifteen or twenty minutes can fuel hours of debate between sharp moviegoers. There are levels and loops and iterations upon iterations. This is the part of the film that works best on the third viewing.

What’s incredible about seeing Primer multiple times is that it keeps working. The parts that had the thrill of discovery, of secrets unlocked, on viewing one retain that on viewing three, but now there are even more thrills. Unlike Memento, which loses impact after a thorough understanding of the film (let alone retardedly putting it in order on the DVD), Primer retains enough mystery to keep you guessing and thinking.

The movie that Primer reminds me most of isn’t one of the ones it is getting compared to the most, like 2001 or Memento. It reminds me of Pi, in that it’s a low budget film based completely on the passion and vision of one man. And like Pi, Primer has the letters P and I in the title, as well as focusing on math and science as the source of its thrills. But where Pi is an in-your-face trnsgressive film where long periods of annoyance and banality are punctuated with gut wrenching horror, Primer is a movie you could take your mom to, if your mom was into fractured and experimental storytelling that intends to make the audience work like migrant apple pickers. I think that a lot of what people like about Aronofsky’s debut is that it’s a smart film that rewards them with violence, shock and weirdness. Carruth is the anti-Aronofsky here, because the weirdest and darkest parts of his movie are obfuscated by the way he has chosen to tell his story. I think that’s braver in the end.