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Underground > Film, TV & Theatre >

Primer

23:35 / 15.02.05

So it's like Pi only in color and has 2 crazy mathematicians for the price of one. I think Gwynny is starring in another movie called Primer, but this one's an independant. The trailer is provoking and hits on all my cues–

What is wanted?

TO REPAIR IT ALL

It's a rescue mission!

Since it ain't a subject title, I assume none of ya'll have seen it. I shall be the first... unless someone posts quickly enough to tell me it's a trite west coast attempt at making math "cool" again.

01:32 / 16.02.05

i thought Primer was the best movie of 2004.

02:17 / 16.02.05

That's because you have taste.

Katie's ass notwithstanding.

On with the show:
What, pray tell, was so good about it?

05:57 / 16.02.05

I saw the trailer a few months back and really want to see it, you can watch the trailer here -

Primer

I'd be interested to read any other spoiler free opinions of it.

17:57 / 22.02.05

Katie who?

I do hear this is a good film, haven't seen it yet.

17:20 / 20.04.05

I just watched Primer. Just now. I am fucked in the head. I think I got it, but the more I think about it, the more my brain hurts. It feels like Bradbury's Sound of Thunder but with multiplication. I need a score card almost.

The movie's great for implications and discussion, but the movie itself needs a lot of work. Dialogue was dubbed in because I guess the budget meant no outdoor recording of dialogue. So when the two main characters are discussing something outside near a truck, there's this audible echo that's obviously from being inside a smaller room. Even though they're outside. That's just one problem.

Also, the movie strives for opacity akin to Richard Kelly. A enigmatic monologue tries to help us, but its inherent anonymity does not forward exposition.

But if you want mind bending, you've watched the right movie. All the problems I came up with are problems associated with being a novice filmmaker. Nonetheless, I recommend this movie to anyone who likes mind-benders.

03:33 / 21.04.05

Yeah, I haven't seen it either but I'm dying to.

03:23 / 22.04.05

I saw Primer about a month ago and was really impressed. In the movie on it's own merits, and in Shane Carruth, who wrote, directed, starred in, and scored (!) it. The story itself is confusing - I read an interview with him where he said he was striving for about 70% comprehension - but I'm not sure if that extends to what is my only real gripe about the film; the audio. Now, it could have been the small art-house theatre "sound system", but quite a bit of the dialogue was inaudible, never mind incomprehensible. Particularly the scene by the fountain. That had to have been on purpose. But we (not the royal we) did enjoy it, there was much discussion afterwards, and I'll be renting it (it's supposed to have been released on april 19th) and maybe trying to make a chart to figure out the "timeline"! The website is here.

00:22 / 24.04.05

Saw this back in October. It is out on DVD. I went in not knowing what to expect -- a friend who had free passes was going out of town the night of the showing -- save for the hyperbolic review quote that said something about it being the greatest science fiction film since 2001. (Kubrick's 2001...not like, the greatest science fiction film since three or four years ago, though that might have been a little more defensible.) Then it turns out to be a movie about a bunch of dorky guys standing around in their garage. Mindblowing.

09:36 / 27.04.05

Before you complain about the production values of this movie, note that it was made with $7,000 on 16mm film. This is the new "El Mariachi" (also made for $7,000).

I loved this movie. The two actors (main guy is the writer, director, et al) were very natural and believable and the tone is tense and consistent througout. And if you thought "Memento" was confusing....

It's fairly straightforward for the first half, and in the last act plunges headlong into mindfuck territory. Past, present, future, they have no meaning at all as the movie wildly fluctuates through it all. It feels like a dream, one of those dreams that's disturbing and unsettling but you're not quite sure why.

I hope this is a big success for Shane Carruth and he gets the recognition and opportunities he deserves for future projects.

13:06 / 27.04.05

Any idea if this ever got a showing in the UK or is it going to be released here soon?

Our Lady Has Left the Building

19:51 / 11.09.05

I understood 'Memento'. There was nothing not to get about 'Memento'. Luckily I had four people cleverer than me to explain to me what happened in that film. I have to agree with what other people have said, poor sound quality but also poor picture quality, I don't know the technics so I don't know whether it was someone who was unsteady on the zoom and focusing, or whether they did it on some kind of automatic camera that wasn't very good. But I got lost at the stage where I think they want to wham people, with the 'box within a box' thing, because I just couldn't understand what they were saying or what they were talking about.

With people to help me figure out what we actually saw, I know this is a good film, unfortunately I feel that they bit off more than they could chew . And why was stopping the shooting important again? Was he going to kill the guy's wife? Who did they chase round the back of the garage?

ONLY NICE THINGS

21:05 / 11.09.05

And why was stopping the shooting important again? Was he going to kill the guy's wife? Who did they chase round the back of the garage?

It wasn't stopping the shooting that was important, exactly. It was orchestrating Rachel's ex-boyfriend arriving at the party with a shotgun, so he goes to jail and stops hassling her. The guy chased around the back of the garage was a duplicate of Thomas Granger, Rachel's father, who has somehow built or stolen a box of his own.

I really enjoyed this one, but it is pretty dense... I'm still trying to work out the precise sequence, and indeed how many Abes and Aarons are kicking around.

08:18 / 12.09.05

I don't have the time to write now to do this justice, but I loved this film - probably my favourite of the year so far. There and again, I didn't find it too hard to follow - by which I mean I'm still very confused but have the gist and can piece it together. What impressed me most was that whilst I left very confused, I was pretty sure that they presented precisely enough information within the film to understand it. One of the few things that irked me about Donnie Darko was that crucial information to understanding the plot (as opposed to the film) was outside it, on the website. Primer is more complete in that sense.

The "poor picture quality" (which gave the film a look I loved) is a result of shooting on 16mm film and then blowing it up to 35mm for distribution. Hence the grain, the indistinct look, the way colours appear, the way orange are sucked up. It's not that the camera's "not very good", Flowers, it's just how that film stock looks. Both a budgetary and artistic choice on the part of the filmmakers.

23:57 / 12.09.05

I liked the way it looked. I just hated the way it sounded, that's all.

miss wonderstarr

05:16 / 13.09.05

I don't believe it is meant to entirely add up by the end. I think we are merely meant to understand that there are multiple versions of each traveller, that they've started coming back covertly at separate times to sabotage each other's journeys and suppress/kidnap their and their partner's duplicates, and that it's all reached a crisis point. I'm not entirely convinced that all the parallel plot strands could all be mapped clearly by that end point, but that's not, in my view, what it's about -- it's only necessary that we get the sense of things having gone to shit, and understand the basics of why.

ONLY NICE THINGS

06:58 / 13.09.05

I think that's probably about right - as long as you get that, the first time we see Abe telling Aaron about the boxes, it's the first tiime Abe is doing it and the second time (or more) that Aaron is hearing it, then the rest unfolds in a reasonably sensible fashion from there.

17:57 / 13.09.05

Yeah, but I suspect that there is a well constructed plot in there, its just that it will take repeated viewings to piece it together. I'm usually irritated by that in a film, but I quite liked it in primer.

23:54 / 15.09.05

The filmmakers insist that all the information you need is there to be unpacked.

There's an interview here that contains some spoilers.

19:08 / 17.09.05

I just watched this movie, and I thought it was very clever. Still digesting it.

15:05 / 25.11.05

Sorry for rasing this dead thread, but I really wanted to post this and just got access to Barbelith.

Here is a complete timeline for Primer, with a new timeline created each time one of them uses the machine. It also indicates which scenes (from which timeline) are seen in the movie. I love this movie.

Primer Timeline

03:25 / 26.11.05

Oh thank the bearded stone somebody made that timeline.

21:59 / 09.03.06

Huzzah for low budget sci-fi, what an excellent movie. I don't understand the grousing about the film making as I thought the low-fi look worked really well in places.

And thank you for that timeline I kinda grasped that but it's good to see it all written down as damm does it all get complicated very quickly. Just that moment with headphones and everything you knew is wrong.

I particularly liked the part where Abe's wife is complaining about 'rats in the attic' and I thought 'thats some time traveller hiding up there', the actual reason was even better.

Also that scene with 'Granger' when everything starts to fall apart, really nice. Best Sci-Fi film I've seen in a very very long time.

20:27 / 18.05.06

it was ingenious, but I didn't follow it. have read one timeline claiming there were six different versions of Aaron in total.

10:14 / 24.05.06

I watched Primer and I just thought it was a great concept let down by truly appalling mixing. I understand it was a low(practically no)budget picture but I don't think they did. If you have next to no money and crappy equipment, don't shoot all your major expositionary scenes outside beside fountains and motorways. I think perhaps they were so in love with the lovely conduit/flowing/time-is-an-ever-forking-journey symbolism, yay, that they forgot that a film is rather dependent on sound and picture telling a story.

I wanted to like the story. I just didn't know what it was, because all I could hear was bloody traffic.