Primer and film criticism

Primer

After watching Primer, and then doing what I hate - reading critic's reviews of it, which infuriate me for any film - I noticed a common theme amongst negative and positive reviews. It's the notion that people without a higher education in hard science, wouldn't be able to 'get it'. I never felt that at all after watching it, and in this diagram of the timelines in the movie, that some obsessed soul created - http://neuwanstein.fw.hu/primer_timeline.html - I think it's proven that it's not a matter of knowing a whole lot about science, so much as it's a measure of one's ability to listen to/view stories and connect events.

I've watched the movie several times now, and I can't say that I'm even close to understanding all 9 timelines laid out in that diagram. Instead, I'd estimate that I got 3 or 4 out of the 9 said to exist. Many critics would attribute my less than 50% comprehension of the film to "poor film-making". To those who truly believe that calling 'Lack of immediate coherence!' on a film, is an acceptable tool for film criticism, I'll ask: Did you fully comprehend all of the symbolism in DaVinci's 'Last Supper' the first time you looked at it? I'll guess no. This is where most movie critics get confused doing their jobs. Are they looking for entertainment or art? When they don't get over-the-top cinematic formula to entertain them, then it's up to 'art' to make them enjoy the film. If they can't understand the art of the film, then the film is labeled as 'bad'. This is such a common occurrence, that I can only attribute it to this: A movie critic lives for feeling superior to his/her subject, film and film-makers. If they feel they aren't 'getting' the film, then that could imply that they might not be qualified to do their job. So, what you get is a gut response born from insecurity. You get a review that says 'It's bad'. Later, if the critic is questioned about his/her negative review, that's when we'll hear the weak, cover-your-ass, get out of cerebral jail free card being thrown: 'Lack of immediate coherence!' Whenever I hear a critic begin to condemn a film due to his/her lack of immediate coherence, I think two things: 1) Never read his/her review again(Michael Medved and Jeffrey Lyons, from that Siskel and Ebert rip off show 'Sneak Previews', are notorious for doing this. Jeffrey Lyons was once so confused by a later Star Trek movie that he said he couldn't follow it or make any sense of it, so therefore it was just 'bad'). 2) Maybe I should check this film out?

It is my opinion, as a fan of science fiction, that Primer may be the 'best' science fiction film ever made, due to it's lack of cinematic glamour, it's lack of FX and it's satisfaction upon repeated viewings. I read recently that Shane Carruth the writer/director/composer/editor/actor for the film said that 'All the President's Men' was his greatest influence in making it, simply because of it's 'realness'. I didn't realize until after reading this, that my emotional response to both movies is near identical. They are both films I hear people label as 'boring' mostly, but when I watch either, I find myself caught up in heart-pounding suspense because they both seem so real. Granted, 'All the President's Men' is based on real events, but so many movies out of Hollywood that are based on true stories fall short in convincing me that I'm watching something that actually happened. Primer's only 'unreal' caveat, is that it's a story about time-travel. In the last few years, the movies I've felt that come closest to this type of film-making are 'Zodiac' and 'Syriana'. Something to note: Syriana can be a confusing movie due to it's pacing and deep cast of characters, so, I watched it twice. The second time around I tried watching it with subtitles on so I could catch every morsel my ears missed the first time. It made total sense. The story is based on the writings of a CIA spook who'd come out of the cold due to his dislike for Bush's Middle East policies. It's a great, timely, and I think important movie. It received a 73% rating on www.rottentomatoes.com.

Guess why?

Overly ambitious and too complicated.

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Comments

Betty Jo Tucker
ReelTalk Movie Reviews

It's hard to get passionately swept away by a movie when you're struggling continually to figure out who's doing what to whom and why.

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Comments

Ruthe Stein
San Francisco Chronicle

A well-meaning, yet meandering and confusing political thriller.

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Collin Souter
eFilmCritic.com

Didactic and muddled to the point of incoherence.

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Nick Schager
Lessons of Darkness

You keep straining to understand the bits and pieces of information that you can make out, but it still adds up to a lot less than the sum of its parts.

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Bruce Newman
San Jose Mercury News

Convoluted, disjointed and extremely dull...amounts to a bunch of ciphers having esoteric conversations about who knows what.

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Chuck O'Leary
Fantastica Daily

...despite exceptional pacing it's so convoluted it is incomprehensible, except for George Clooney's message about America being the bad guy in the world.

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Comments

Tony Medley
tonymedley.com


You get my point.

With a small bit of effort, Syriana is perfectly understandable, it's not convoluted, the sum of it's parts add up to an entire film, and it's anything but dull. I mean, if a movie seems too hard for a film critic to understand, then maybe they should go watch it a few more times.

IT'S THEIR GOD DAMNED JOB.

Back to Primer. The only reason I say it 'may be' the best sci fi film ever made, is because Blade Runner: The Final Cut was released in theaters and DVD in 2007, and I don't know what exactly Ridley Scott did, but the Final Cut changed the way Michi and I thought about characters in the film in a substantial way. The uncanny part is that Michi and I both had the same revelations of change. I'll try to sort that one out after I get the DVD shipped to me. Until then it's a tie between Primer and BR for me.

I'm eagerly awaiting Shane Carruth's next project. I like it that he didn't immediately jump into Hollywood after winning an award at Sundance. On his IMDB page, all you see is links to Primer. No 'rumored', or 'in production' listed anywhere. However, in an interview with a French film journalist, he gave up some info about what he's working on:

(excerpt)
"Is your next movie like Primer ?"

"My Next movie will be different but there will be some similarities. It's a bigger story. It's talking about children growing up. It will be very different from usual movies. It'll be focused on technologies dedicated to magic. It's close to supernatural but still based on scientific and logical basis. There will be no blah-blah tech. It's talking about what we observe and what we see. Characters will have to deal with decisions at the origin of life..."

The complete interview here (in french) :http://www.commeaucinema.com/interview=76736.html

I think it's great that he seems to be so completely off the Hollywood map, that the only place I can find any information about what he's doing is a French website. This builds my hope that he's taking his time to blow my freaking mind again.

Maybe.

I think good art takes time, so take your time, Shane.

ps - When I read what his latest project was about, I was mostly excited but a little bummed too. I've been researching a lot about the occult, demons, and magic in my spare time. I was trying to imagine a scenario that sounds very similar to what he's writing: A technological, or logical, explanation for how magic can exist and be controlled. It was inspired by Hellboy, Allan Moore and the Encyclopedia of the Occult. The bummer comes from the fact that I doubt I'd be able to create something as brilliant as Carruth could, within the same context.

pps - I'm not into occult practices. I just think it's interesting that people can believe in that stuff, and what lengths they will go to, to try and harness 'power' for themselves. It's fascinating and bizarre.