Aerothorn on 27/8/2005 at 02:09
Vaguely remember this getting mixed reviews when it came out...will add this to the list of 'to-see'.
The Alchemist on 27/8/2005 at 05:09
Primer fucked with my head.
It looped in and out so much that I lost track.
It's one of those movies that even after I read the 9 part timeline for it, I still didn't really understand who when and how.
It was good though worth a watch.
Scots Taffer on 20/5/2006 at 14:03
Yeah, fuck you necromancy warning. I just got around to this, it's recently been released on DVD over here and I picked it up.
My head hurts. I fear it may be broken. This movie is a complete and utter mindfuck.
It doesn't help that I'm really tired today and that it's been a long week, but jesus, looking at that timeline, I need a bunch of graphs to see this shit straight.
It's a great movie, in terms of it's big play, but the director needs to learn that when you have five people speaking at the same time, all you get is a big aural mush like someone's just stuck their cock in your ear.
Dia on 20/5/2006 at 14:14
I thought the movie started out interestingly enough, but got so muddled and convoluted that it made my brain hurt. Continuity was noticeably lacking. We had to rerun the parts where everybody was talking all at once to try to catch it all.
Mindfuck indeed.
Uncia on 20/5/2006 at 14:17
I absolutely adored the movie. It went from a believable, atmospheric scifi tale to a complex jumble that really made your mind work. Any movie that has me thinking about it after I leave the theatre is a good one. :)
I'd also like to point out that there's no official timeline or explanation. All you can find are fan theories, there's no One Certain Explanation. There are some pretty convincing guesses however.
Scots Taffer on 20/5/2006 at 14:20
I'm definitely going to have to rewatch it. And probably pretty soon. It's a mindfuck even getting around the simple premise of their one-day jaunts much less the failsafe excursions, and figuring out how one could take the two boxes back in the failsafe excursion and set them up as a dummy failsafe and a duplicate failsafe and the multiple versions of the two guys going around and the logistics of why the boxes are powered and who's in them and why they have to leave them as is and the timers and that hot wet sound is my brain imploding.
I'm utterly confused about one thing though - who the fuck was Thomas Granger and how the hell did he find the boxes and why did he go in it?
And I really want to punch the actor/director/writer in the ear to make him see how it feels to not understand what you're hearing.
Aerothorn on 20/5/2006 at 15:38
I don't recall having trouble understanding what people were saying.
But Scots, it should be noted that this film had a budget of $7000. Which, it does not need to be said, is nothing.
For comparison purposes, you could make 29,571.4 films of Primer's budget for the cost of one King Kong remake.
The fact that he made a good-looking film on that budget is amazing. But it cost him. It cost him in the cost of hiring cast and crew - Aaron whathisname served as the director, writer, actor, composer, editor, etc (and for what it's worth, I quite liked the music). They also didn't have any money to do retakes - film costs money so the entire movie is a first take, and if there were mess-ups, they had to live with that.
And they certainly didn't have money for fancy surround sound equipment or whatnot.
Scots Taffer on 21/5/2006 at 00:55
Right. But that doesn't matter when they had scenes, like in the kitchen at the beginning, where 3 people were speaking continuously - you're never going to get anything but aural diarrhea.
I have no problem with small budget movies but it helps if they are aware of their own constraints, and in this case, clear audio (it was only REALLY bad at the beginning for the first ten minutes and after the point where the failsafe scenarios kicked in). Unfortunately, those are rather crucial segments for the understanding of the highly complex plot.
In fact, when the film ended because of the audio, I had no idea about:
1. What had happened at the party the first time it is mentioned except I heard the word shotgun.
2. I had no idea who was in the car behind them and what happened after the brief chase and also they mentioned quickly and in a mumble how someone else had gone into the boxes and then ended in a coma.
3. Anything that happened in the last twenty minutes except for what I could visually see, which included very confusing things like Aaron drugging himself then stashing himself away and then fighting with himself seemingly seconds later then agreeing something with his other self and talking about recordings. What the fuck.
The audio really was terrible and even though I'm impressed with pretty much everything else about this film - including the fact that I'd have to rewatch several times to pick up on the several times - that audio nearly killed my enjoyment.
Uncia on 21/5/2006 at 01:14
While the audio is weak in parts, I think you're putting too much faith in those scenes being significantly clearer with better sound. ;)
Scots Taffer on 21/5/2006 at 02:12
Yeah, so can someone tell me who the fuck Thomas Granger was and how he ended up in the boxes?
