There are some movies, which you have to see several times in order to start understanding their stories. Examples of this are Donnie Darko and Memento. Some people call these “mindfuck” movies, as you’ll have to think quite a bit to get what the film maker wanted to say. It’s a genre which you either love or hate, as you’ll be thinking about these type of movies for days. I really love these type of movies so was looking forward to seeing Primer.
The movie starts with four friends who are working on a project in a garage. They have very technical conversations which you probably won’t understand unless you got your physics degree and know what they are working on. The group falls apart and two of them finally create something which looks like a box. The problem is that they don’t know what it is and what it can do. They experiment and find out what it’s capable of and it doesn’t take long before your brain is slowly stimulated to keep track of everything and understand what actually is happening. There is a small change that you will though. Director Shane Carruth has admitted that he left out an essential part on purpose, resulting in a movie which can be explained in different ways.
The movie was made with an extremely low budget of only 7000 dollar, but there is not a moment that you will notice this though. The movie is set on various locations and uses a couple of effective effects shots. The acting, done by an unknown cast, is good.
At the end of the movie you will definitely want to watch it again or talk about it with someone, just to get a hold on all the thinking that you will be doing and start to think of an explanation.
If you are a fan of the genre, it’s a movie that you really have to see.
Score: 9
Yay! Nice little review of a great low budget film… Too bad there aren’t more like it! Science fiction needs some fresh ideas/faces — have you seen Duncan Jones’ Moon?
I don’t know if there are more of these with a science fiction angle, but I do know of this site which keeps a list of “mindfuck” movies: http://www.classreal.com/
Yes, I did see Moon and thought it was an amazing movie.
Yup, Moon wasn’t exactly a “mindfuck” but a low budget inventive take on the genre…. Thanks for the link.
There are some GREAT movies on that list..
Still have to make time to go through that list myself and see which ones I need to see. I know I won’t be watching any David Lynch stuff, those are usually way too weird for me…
Oh, I’m not really a fan of Lynch’s — or perhaps, I’m generally ambivalent towards him — I LOVED Twin Peaks (the tv show) and HATED Blue Velvet and tolerated his adaptation of Dune (although you had to know the plot of the book first to make any sense of the film).
I did enjoy his first three films (they’re super super weird) The Amputee, 1970 The Grandmother (short), The Alphabet…
He does direct a few straight forward top-notch dramas — The Straight Story for example…
Everytime I watch this my score goes up and up, definitely my favourite sci-fi films of recent years. Mindfuck FTW
Nice to see other people liking this. It’s one I’ll probably will be watching again.
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