[Hamlet Piglet]

I got a little bored and I wanted to share a movie that was sent to me a while back.

Written on Friday, January 7, 2011 at 2:38pm

Primer


This movie was unique and interesting enough for me to write a note or two about. I encourage you to watch it if you like movies that require a little thinking to resolve the mystery of the sequence, which is quite a rare occurrence in this age when looking at North American movies.

Primer is a short but full length film released in 2004 (although some sources state 2003) directed by Shane Carruth which tells the story of two engineers which build a time machine. Unlike many other time traveling movies out there, this one focuses solely on the the time traveling itself concept itself. An accurate way of looking at it is to imagine the movie Inception without the subplot. This movie does not take into account adventures or drama of any sort and does not try to give the illusion that it does so. Nevertheless, it is a movie that will probably take more than one sitting to digest everything that has been presented to you.

Shane Carruth was an engineer who quit his job to give himself enough time to make this feature film, he has only produced acted and directed this one and only film to my knowledge, but as a first film it won the Grand Jury Prize, Sundance Film Festival in 2004 as well as Alfred P. Sloan Prize in 2004 which is given to films that approach a scientific and technological perspective. At the moment there are rumors that he is working on a second film called A Topiary as he set up a website for it, but all that the website contains is "Over an over you have been promised ADVENTURE but have not found it"; this quote can be found at http://atopiary.com/. I have no clue howl long the message has been there or when the movie plans to be released.

Going on to the movie itself, the direction was superb within it's budget constraints of 7000$ which is abysmally small for a film of any kind. This does not mean that it was without fault, there were a few awkward shots here and there concerning the camera direction as well as few scenes that felt awkwardly transitioned or could of been acted out a little better. These faults in no way affect the enjoyment of the film and in no way are they common. Personally, my mind was willing to look past these faults because of how immersed I was in this film. Truly the science of this film is what I would consider being the best actor in this production as it feels so developed.

The narrative plays a big part in this film and will give out key words which you can use to interpret scenes. May I note that unlike many other movies the narration here is done well and it works to the movies's advantage. Often this is not the case when a movie is carried by narration for the reason that it usually feels like it is trying to fill a gap that could of been represented by adding scenes.

I will not speak too much of the movie as any kind of analysis of any scene may give it away. I warn you that getting the movie spoiled at any magnitude may ruin the entire experience. If you're expecting to see something magnificent in visuals or score, you will not get any of it in this film. This movie is a must to watch and learn from if you are aiming to introduce yourself to the industry of film production or direction, and probably more than once.

For those, who are into films of this type or of this quality, I recommend looking up film festivals like Sundance as they appear throughout the year as these films do not get much media attention. I am in fact looking to go to check out the Toronto's film fest and Sundance and ComicCon in the following years. If you're over there hit me up I'll pass by and say "hi" or most likely a "wats up".

[CXeNoRuN]

My dad borrowed this from Netflix and told me to watch it but it looked boring :(

[Hamlet Piglet]

CXeNoRuN, on 15 February 2011 - 03:55 AM, said:

My dad borrowed this from Netflix and told me to watch it but it looked boring :(

Depends on what you find interesting. For example Transformers 2 was boring in my opinion (well not a good comparison because it was a bad movie as well).
This one feels like inception without the extreme effects, nevertheless very well played(probably due to the budget).

[CXeNoRuN]

I didn't enjoy the premise of the movie itself. Maybe it's because of the way that I think of what time travel should be as opposed to how it's portrayed in movies. I actually caught bits of the movie towards the end when the two decide to kill the guy with the shotgun and then argue about what they're going to do next at the airport.

Inception wasn't really THAT amazing. It was okay. The story was not hard to follow contrary to what many people told me. The only thing that is confusing about the movie is the open ending which is left to one's own interpretation.

As for stuff that I find interesting... I want to watch The King's Speech. It looks really good.

[Hamlet Piglet]

CXeNoRuN, on 15 February 2011 - 07:51 PM, said:

I didn't enjoy the premise of the movie itself. Maybe it's because of the way that I think of what time travel should be as opposed to how it's portrayed in movies. I actually caught bits of the movie towards the end when the two decide to kill the guy with the shotgun and then argue about what they're going to do next at the airport.

Inception wasn't really THAT amazing. It was okay. The story was not hard to follow contrary to what many people told me. The only thing that is confusing about the movie is the open ending which is left to one's own interpretation.

As for stuff that I find interesting... I want to watch The King's Speech. It looks really good.

I understand where you're coming from, to each his own actually and I'm glad there's opinions that differ.

Inception in itself was more of an eye candy on, representing a concept. It really isn't hard to follow and plot wise, I find it is overrated. If you think about it the plot in itself feels like a cop out, nothing that really carries any weight to it. It seemed like they were trying to find excuses to represent and compare the dimensions with their visual effects.

I won't deny that The King's Speech was pretty well executed as a movie.

[Ocean.]

Mr.Piggleton, on 15 February 2011 - 08:47 PM, said:

Inception in itself was more of an eye candy on, representing a concept. It really isn't hard to follow and plot wise, I find it is overrated. If you think about it the plot in itself feels like a cop out, nothing that really carries any weight to it. It seemed like they were trying to find excuses to represent and compare the dimensions with their visual effects.

Yeah, you recommended Primer on my old thread about the movie "Poetry", right?
I'm going to watch it once I find time~

As for Inception, I'd say it were pretty straightforward as well.. and I don't know why people find it to be so hard or confusing to understand. Although it was a good movie to me, there weren't really any intricate, complex layers of the story to unlock, haha. But of the three times that I've watched it, I always leave mildly feeling like there's still a question that has yet to be answered from the movie =p

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