Primer - A Review and More

I had never heard of this movie before today, and that's no surprise. It won a wheelbarrow full of awards -- Best Director, Best Film, so on -- from Sundance to Cannes and points between, but I don't really keep up with such things. In fact, this is another one that would have flown right under my radar, were it not for the Showtime free weekend and the utter lack of anything else interesting on any of the other 300+ channels I pay out my ass for monthly.
Regardless, let me start this off by saying exactly how fantastic this movie is. This is a must-see, and I rarely ever say anything like that about any movie. Let me then explain that this movie was made independently out of Dallas, TX, for the unheard-of sum of $7000 by a former mathematician/engineer who had absolutely no prior training in film, screenwriting, scoring, acting, or anything else he did (and he had a hand in literally everything). Knowing that, the fact this film succeeds is enough reason to see it, but the fact that it is very possibly one of the best movies you will ever see is why it is a must-see movie.

I loved this movie so much, I saw it, looked it up all over the Internet, then bought it on e-Bay. Further viewings will help me piece it together, but I was happy to note that most viewers are confused by it -- and rightfully so -- this movie is so brilliant, so intelligent, on so many levels, that anyone who says they figured it out the first time around has to be a liar.

Aaron and Abraham are two engineers who work with a group of friends from home in their spare time. They have set up a small development company operating out of Aaron's garage and eagerly work on new projects, busily applying for patents. One project in particular has to do with producing a more efficient energy transmission device or battery -- it is never particularly clear, but has to do with improving cooling units for a superconductor by somehow using a magnetic field to counteract the heat (caused by vibrations from the energy, I assume?). In developing this project independently of the group, Aaron and Abraham discover the device is able to send objects backward and forward in time. They then build a machine large enough to transport a human through time and chaos ensues.

The entire thing is brilliant. It is so smart, so deep, so frenetic, that even though you have almost no idea what the hell they are discussing at first, their excitement and intensity draws you in -- you want to know what they are talking about -- it's infectious. And the first part of the film relies on nothing more than this fascination, as it continues to be obtuse and exclusive with its information -- a perfect characterization of the types of people portrayed (tech geeks, basically). Shot on 16mm film blown up to 35mm, it achieves that grainy, overexposed look of classic 1970's flicks of the genre (albeit intentionally): a documentarian, cinema-veritae feel, heightened by handheld cameras, pans, and zooms.

The actors not only look the part, their characterization is furthered by stringent costuming (button-down white shirt with a tie, sensible khakis -- which also plays into the non-linear development), awkward relationships with sports-obsessed roommates and unwitting family members, comments impatiently finished by equally tech-obsessed colleagues, so on. The acting itself is phenomenal: perfectly realistic without being pointedly so; these cats are so deep into character, there is not one slip throughout the entire piece. In general, I would say that this was helped by the fact that they are both unknowns, but in the case of Primer, the talent shines through.

The dialogue is pitch-perfect to the subject matter and the characters, and cemented by the actors' realistic delivery -- stumbling over one another's lines and finishing one another's sentences. It culminates in a deliberate and well-choreographed cacophany, mirroring that of the characters' real-life counterparts. True to form, extremely complex theories and discussions are boiled down to barebones explanations ("This is not basic heat and mechanics!") because the characters involved already know what they are talking about and they would not bother to explain it to one another just for the benefit of the audience (as is most often done in similar, less well-made films). But even the most rudimentary knowledge of such things (which I assure you, is all I have) makes it pretty easy to follow and, even if you don't get it, understanding the process is concurrently superfluous and analogous to the plot, meaning to say there is something in this movie for every viewer, so if you don't get something, it doesn't matter -- which is basically the whole of the piece.

The most highly-recommended movie I've reviewed to date.

[SPOILERS]

Aaron says to Abraham, "You can't spend your whole life just watching them," referring to their doubles. This is important to the closing scene, in which he tells Aaron to go on and do whatever the hell he wants to do, because he is going to stay and make sure they never build the boxes in the first place, stating that even if his double gets it right, he will sneak in and steal parts and otherwise continue to thwart his efforts until he gives up on the project. Some incarnation of Aaron obviously goes on to France to work on a very large machine and Abe continues to do just what he said he would.

Aaron is the one who stabilizes the original machine. I keep coming back to that in my consideration of everything; I'm not sure if it's a red herring or not.

What the hell happened that night behind the truck at Aaron's garage (by the basketball goal)? I did not understand that part at all. I thought Abe had killed someone -- specifically, Granger or the other guys in the group -- but then he got up and said something I missed and we jump-cut to another scene at another time. I have no idea what, if any, significance this scene holds.

Aaron's ear is bleeding from the earpiece, proving he has been going back alone without Abe's knowledge. One of the guys in the group thanks Abe for a present and calls him "hero," proving that Abe has been going back alone, unbeknownst to Aaron. In one of these timelines, Aaron discovered Abe's failsafe in an adjacent rental unit and "caught" Abe traveling alone. In two distinct timelines, when each had gone back independently of the other, each drugs his double in order to permanently alter the timeline for both incarnations, but each of the individual's independent trips negates these altered timelines. In any event, only one timeline exists -- the changes are only permanent from the last "revision."

Aaron went back and told Granger about the experiment. Granger was following them because Aaron put him in a box and brought him back specifically to see Aaron's double get out of the car. Granger either went into a coma while in the machine or Aaron drugged him. My personal theory is that Aaron used Granger to get further funding, then somehow trapped him within the machine to eliminate him from the equation. At any rate, even after only one viewing, I am convinced one of Aaron's incarnations went to Granger and showed him the experiment the same way Abe originally showed it to him.

Recursive in the context of the film means stuck in a loop. Granger went through the A-End and is coming back out of it, exactly like the Weeble ("reliving the same second") -- he cannot complete the loop and emerge from the B-End -- he is not completing the circle, but recursing back to the starting point. Thus, one Granger funded the project for one incarnation of Aaron, but once Aaron went back (to a point right after that happens) and revised it, the real Granger was stuck in time. MAYBE... heh.

The second incarnation of Aaron, his first time going back alone, is the hooded Aaron who narrates. He is leaving the message for himself -- the original Aaron he drugged and placed in the attic -- which means that the original Abe succeeded in thwarting his double from ever completing work on the box, but the original Aaron did develop a functioning device independently. If he had not, he would never have time-traveled at all and never been in the attic. This means that the original Aaron is the one who developed the box, got Granger to invest in it, then later builds it on a larger scale at the end of the movie.

If I am correct, it means that the second Aaron was kept from drugging the original Aaron by the third. Hooded Aaron then runs away to a hotel room, where he places the narrating call to the original. The phonecall he receives and answers in the hotel room with Abe is not from his wife, but from himself. And the original Aaron was apprised of future possible events once he stumbled out of the attic, and told to continue developing the project independently and covertly.

Now, this is from ONE, my initial, viewing and there are at least as many theories on what actually happened and how as there are Aarons and Abes, so take it for what it's worth. When the DVD arrives, we'll plan a Primer day and IM chat while we watch it like 3-4 times back-to-back, if anyone's interested. According to the one-man army who made this film, there is a definite story and timeline and everything you need to know to figure it out is in the film.

Wow, that was nerdy even for me!

Go get this movie, though. You will thank me time and again. Heh.