TIMECRIMES: Cold and Calculated Like A Ticking Clock

Director: Nacho Vigalondo
Writer: Nacho Vigalondo
Cast: Karra Elejalde, Barbara Goenaga, Nacho Vigalondo
Runtime: 92 mins.
2007

Timecrimes, or Cronocrimenes, is a Spanish time-travelling film about a rather normal middle-aged fellow who stumbles into a rather abnormal temporal scenario.  This fellow Hector (Karra Elejalde) begins the film by relaxing with his wife in the yard of his new home.  As he is scanning the woods through binoculars for some unspecified reason, he spies a young woman in the woods who is calmly stripping for, again, no apparent reason whatsoever.  Of course our hero investigates this mystery, whereupon he discovers the woman (Barbara Goenaga) lying naked and unconscious.  He approaches her slowly, only to be stabbed in the arm by a bandage-faced individual with a pair of scissors.  This startling development leads him to seek shelter in a strange complex, and make contact with a mysterious scientist (Nacho Vigalondo) who coaxes him into a large machine filled with white, milky fluid, ostensibly as a place to hide from the bandage-faced dude.  Well, it's a time machine.  So ends the first act.

I'm not one for recaps-as-reviews, but it's kind of impossible to talk about this movie without some knowledge of the plot, because that's really all there is to it.  The acting isn't anything special.  The production values aren't anything special.  What themes there are are fairly straightforward, and rooted firmly in the plot.  The real draw of this film is how flawlessly it realizes its time travel scenario, careful to iron out all wrinkles as it speeds along.

As far as I can tell, time travel in Timecrimes works more or less like it does in Primer.  You get in the machine at point Y in time, you get out of the machine at point X in time: in this film, that point is several hours earlier.  The problem is, now there are two copies of you running around (or one original and one copy...?), and the potential for paradox abounds.  This will not be the last time I compare Timecrimes to Primer.

Anyway, the movie is split up into three distinct phases (or acts, if that helps you).  The first phase I have already described to you--it's mysterious and attention-grabbing.  The second phase is a bit tedious, but does the only interesting thematic work of the movie.  Namely, we get a new perspective on those incomprehensible signs from the first phase, as Hector 2 works to bring those scenarios about so that Hector 1 will get into the time machine like a good little slave to the machinations of the space-time continuum.  What was fairly straightforward slasher imagery becomes more interesting as we see our protagonist morph from a ho-hum guy to an agent of terror, all in an effort to perform for himself.

The third phase keeps you guessing until the end, but it never really ups the ante in any significant way.  I suppose that's alright.  The whole affair is pleasantly atmospheric, from the striking images to the contained environment to the fact that the film is in Spanish (for some reason, I feel like that improved the vibe).  The problem is, there isn't much depth behind that pleasant atmosphere.

I finished the movie with a pleasant feeling about it, even thought it didn't make me feel anything.  But it was an intellectual exercise--did I really need to feel something?  Well, for as tightly executed as it is, Timecrimes doesn't leave you with much to think about either.  Nothing more than a smirk at the soundness of its logic game.

This stands in stark contrast to the aforementioned Primer, which is a film that plagued me for weeks and months and even years after I saw it.  Whenever I think of that film, it's with a sense of awe.  I'm half-tempted to genuflect.  Using the same (more or less) time travel logic as Timecrimes, Primer crafted a far more intricate and wide-reaching plot, and it did not hold your hand and guide you.  Rather, it flung you into the frothing rapids of paradox and let you grope for something solid to hold onto.  That's the beauty of the movie.

The other beauty of Primer is that there is so much more going on than a mere intellectual exercise.  The film is so well-written that it manages to engage the idea of intellectual exercises thematically in a complex way that deals with obsession and our cultural perception of science as objective and passionless.  Frankly, Primer feels like a borderline religious experience, whereas Timecrimes just feels like a cool idea.

The more I dwell on Timecrimes after the fact, and the more I compare it to Primer, the more it sours on me.  Maybe the comparison isn't fair, but why wouldn't it be?  They're both low-budget films using the same general concept of time travel that derive their drama from the possibility of paradox.  Hell, Nacho even pulls  off the same Shane Carruth trifecta of writing, directing, and acting in the movie.  I think the comparison is fair.

An English-language remake of Timecrimes is in development, and was rumored to be helmed by David Cronenberg, but he has since denied that rumor.  Much like Vigalondo's movie, this remake sounds less and less exciting as more time passes.

2.5 / 5  BLOBS