A few posts ago I wrote about the latest 'chic flick' called Prime (a film I would be seen dead watching, thank you). But I did see an interesting film a couple of evenings ago on DVD called 'Primer'.
As I'm getting increasingly bored with the standard Hollywood fare I tend to seek out more obscure films these days. Particularly Science fiction ones. Primer is an independently made film about a couple of men who invent a time machine. Its not your usual, dramatic movie time machine, its a device about as big as a large fridge, which they eventually crawl into for a while, and travel back in time several hours. This allows them to start betting on sporting events and making stock market trades. But it also means that when they come out of the devices, they have to hide themselves in a hotel room as they have to avoid bumping into their doubles (who are still in the present).
The film goes against the typical rules of cinema - the story is driven almost totally by dialogue (whereas in the best films the storytelling is mainly visual), there's no real emotion in the film, no tension, no passion, and there are no memorable scenes. Apparently the film was shot for only a few thousand dollars, which is pretty amazing as the cinematography looks very good. If you like complex, cerebral films that you have to analyze in order to understand, then this may be a good alternative to the mainstream trash of the multiplexes.
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