Review of Primer (2004) by F J — 30 Mar 2010

This film is just astonishing. This is easily one of the best accomplishments in movie history, even though the movie isn't one of the best ever. Primer bends the mind, makes you think, drives you crazy, and leaves you speechless in the short amount of time you and the movie have together (it's only 77 minutes long). Why so impressive? This movie is done by all first timers, in every single category, no experience in movies, and the budget was around $7000, most of which went to just getting film stock.

While watching I felt it reminisced my favorite movie of all time; Memento (2001). The reason is because you really are lost for what's going on at points, and then it becomes clear as day, or could keep you lost. Primer is basically about two guys who accidently make a time machine, yes it's another time travel movie, but this takes the craziness from a 1 to 10. They start using it to get money and then things get a little bit tricky (to say the least).

The movie was written, directed, produced, edited, most of the other technical things involved, and starred the same person; Shane Carruth. It's a shame that he never made another movie because he obviously had a knack for making movies, since he basically did everything in this one. The direction in this film is a combination of many different style, once blended together, it makes for excellence. He uses traditional still shots, some shaky shots, a lot of claustrophobic type angles, and motion shots. It's basically just a giant tangle of different, great, shots.

The acting is good, if they were professional actors, but because none had an experience whatsoever, that makes the acting grade A, top notch. Like I mentioned in the previous paragraph, the movie starred Shane Carruth & David Sullivan. Shane has not worked on anything else in the movie industry and David has done some small movies, but still nothing major. Regardless this was both of their first movies, and their really the only actors in it, and both do great.

I feel that they were long time buddies way before making this. In the movie those are their characters and they play them perfectly, and have great chemistry together on screen. Shane plays a guy who is easily to manipulate, that doesn't happen in the movie, but that's the type of guy. I think the character really does reflect him in real life. Shane is just likeable and charismatic and is a great lead.

Now comes a star-studded performance, you would think he's been in tons of movies, doing this for a very long time. David Sullivan gives a riveting performance, he really is the front man of the operation and he plays the role with aggression, and persistence. There isn't a moment in the movie where he let's his guard down, and he is always captivating the watcher. I think if both of them stayed on the Sundance path they could have easily gone somewhere, but sadly that didn't happen.

Now the mystical part of the movie; the story. It was written by Shane Carruth, and it really is one of the most confusing, mind-bending, and best cerebral movies made ever. The story in the beginning is very unclear what is going on, and a lot of the dialogue is tricky, where it doesn't make sense unless you're a scientist of some sort. The plot keeps going and a time when you think, Oh I get it, it will throw a curveball and you're lost. The movie constantly does that throughout, and it just boggles your mind. Towards the end it rushes everything that is really important leaving you going, Huh? The main flaw to this movie was the length, it should have been longer. That leads into the second problem, didn't elaborate, but it didn't have time, so those two run together.

This is a very confusing movie and I am definitely going to watch it again to see if it makes more sense on a second viewing. I understood most of it though on the first viewing and it is definitely an interesting flick. If you like Sci-Fi movies or movies in the vein of Memento then you should definitely check this one out.

**** (out of *****); See It.