Browsing for the best time travelling movies to have been released till date and the internet, melodiously and crystal clear loudly, sang the glory of 'Primer' in one voice. Touted as one of the best for the time travelling concept, it was said that Primer will make 'Inception' look dumb. This piqued my interest further as the 'Inception' was one of the most original and daring sci-fi film to have been ever made in recent times. With its never-heard cast and director, it was nothing short of blatant irreverence to say that an out-of-nowhere film as 'Primer' was a cut above the brainy masterpiece as Inception. However, it was only after watching the 60 minute odd debut movie by Shane Carruth that I understood as to why the tall claims that it is better than Inception was actually true and not mere claims. Needless to say that I had to chew my own personal belief when I watched Primer even for the second time and still couldn't make head or tail out of it.
Made on a shoestring budget, Primer is a straight forward heavily complex movie that will definitely give the non-linear narratives a run for their money. It's all about how 2 engineers accidentally discover a time anomaly and then build a machine to make themselves rich. Unfortunately, absolute power corrupts absolutely. The story becomes giddyingly ingenious, dizzyingly intricate and amazingly confusing that by the end of the movie, I felt like someone had kept a big boulder on top of my head and was breaking it to pieces with a hammer. As soon as Primer got over, my first reaction was to type in Wikipedia and understand what the hell I sat through for the one hour I was watching it. Regrettably, Wiki's explanation was again too much for this Vicky! Never have I explored the vast corners of the Internet to get some understanding on the matter at hand particularly for a film. But, yes. Primer deserves it. Close to 6 hours and the web was teeming with tons of information on the subject yet the overall picture was still hazy. Such is the level of labyrinthine complexity of the plot that it made not just my head to scratch but millions across the world to lose their sleep over and help people like me by shedding some light on this please-make-me-understand movie. There was actually a note in one of the websites that there is a real research paper written on Primer. I was not sure whether it was a grapevine but considering the amount of scientific jargons that were used in the first few minutes of the film to explain the technicalities, it could have been very well true too. By the end of it, there had been at least 9 timelines existed in Primer with the constant shuffling of the original and future Abes and Aarons. But, strictly speaking, only Shane Carruth would know for sure how many timelines were played out in Primer!
Just like Primer, his next venture 'Upstream Colour' was also written, directed, produced, edited and starred by Shane Carruth besides having control over the cinematography and background score. Though Upstream Colour is not as utterly baffling as Primer, the plot would still definitely make you to be all at sea if you don't watch and understand this wonderful sci-fi very closely in your first viewing. The colorful cinematography with its poignant BGM added the extra level to the story's intricacy of how a parasite's life cycle is traced, what are its effects on the people which makes them oblivion to the fact as to who they are and eventually culminates into a face-off at the end. I have ensured that there are absolutely no spoilers in this slow yet stupendous cerebral cinema outing.
Steve Carruth is the rare breed of audaciously authentic thinkers in this age of mostly reboots, remakes, prequels and sequels in Hollywood. Considering the degree of complex density he has cleverly and tightly packed in his two day outs,The Modern Ocean is sure to be a cracker especially it is going to be Shane's first big budget film with top stars like Keanu Reeves, Daniel Radcliffe and Anne Hathaway. Awaiting the sail soon.
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