Primer (Mark's Take)
02/11/2004 . Source: Mark R. Leeper 
This SF film gets the research environment and the baffling scientific techno-jargon just about right. The story is hard to follow, but that might not be so unrealistic either. Definitely this is a demanding and puzzling film that does a lot with its minuscule budget. Buy Primer in the USA - or Buy Primer in the UK  PRIMER
(a film review by Mark R. Leeper) CAPSULE:
This SF film gets the research environment and the baffling scientific techno-jargon
just about right. The story is hard to follow, but that might not be so unrealistic
either. Definitely this is a demanding and puzzling film that does a lot with
its miniscule budget. Rating: high +1 (-4 to +4) or 6/10
[Minor spoilers.] PRIMER is a foxy, ultra-low-budget, amateur
film and is perhaps the most believable time-travel story on film. It may also
be one of the most incomprehensible. This is a real physicist's science fiction
film. If time travel is going to be invented in the next decade, the research
environment shown in this film is probably the sort of place it will happen. And
these are the sort of people who will do it. 
The viewer goes through a lot of obfuscation to get to the point, only to find
that the confusion and the verbal fog are much of the point. For about the first
twenty minutes of this film there is nothing really comprehensible said but business
and scientific babble. We are clearly looking at a startup technical company with
a very great deal of technical expertise. The talk sounds believable and is delivered
with realistic overlapping dialog. We are looking at a startup
company of a handful of young physicists who have incorporated and then done something
extraordinary in a garage. Leading the project are Aaron and Abe, two people who
are on a higher plane of technical expertise than anyone you know. Something
amazing has been developed here in a Texas garage, but the viewer does not know
what it is that the company has created. When we get enough clues finally it turns
out has something to do with what uninitiated laymen would call time travel. Confusing
the issue is a short discussion thrown in about fungus. What fungus has to do
with time travel is never explained. (Heck, nothing is every explained in this
film.) There is a plot dealing with causality problem avoidance
and multiple parties trying to counter each other's actions. One probably has
to see the film several times or even many times if the plot is going to sink
in. If PRIMER has anything to offer the viewer it is intelligence.
And intelligence is a commodity missing from so many films; PRIMER is worthwhile
for science fiction fans and for techno-geeks and especially techno-geek science
fiction fans. It is enjoyable for those who like puzzle films. Others may go running
out in frustration. This film somehow got the Best Drama award
at the 2004 Sundance Film Festival. That is something of a jaw-dropping surprise.
Director, writer, actor, cinematographer, producer, editor, and composer Shane
Carruth actually needed a few other people, notably actors, to make his film.
Just how he managed to both run the camera and star in the film is anybody's guess.
But he made an intelligent, albeit frustrating, science fiction
film and copped a major award with it at Sundance. It won't have a wide audience
and for those who equate science fiction and special effects it will not have
a lot to offer. Those looking for sci-fi instead of science fiction will not like
it. And those who absolutely hate being baffled will not like it. Who does that
leave? Mark R. Leeper
Copyright
2004 Mark R. Leeper 
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