I would like to start by saying I normally have no problem with non-linear timelines. I read and enjoy books about time travel that skip back and forth between eras (Connie Willis's The Doomsday Book, To Say Nothing of the Dog, and Blackout/All Clear; Audrey Niffenegger's The Time Traveler's Wife). I had no problem understanding the "twist" to Memento - and given that the movie's website was www.otnemem.com, I didn't understand why everyone was so flabbergasted that (SPOILER ALERT) part of the movie is shown backwards!! (And I'm not trying to make those of you who didn't get Memento right off feel bad, I'm usually not very prescient. I didn't pick up on any of the clues and was therefore completely shocked by the ending of The Sixth Sense.) At any rate, I liked Memento and didn't have any problems following it at all. I like brain-teasers; I like things that make me think through them, I like puzzles.
And then I watched Primer. Which starts out as a time-traveling nerd/engineer indie, and then got really really weird, and my brain tied itself in knots trying to figure it out. The IMDB synopsis states "Four friends/fledgling entrepreneurs, knowing that there's something bigger and more innovative than the different error-checking devices they've built, wrestle over their new invention." Which I guess is technically true, but really doesn't even come close to describing half the movie. The premise of Primer is a bunch of engineers designing a time travel device, and then traveling back (and forth!) in time to affect their futures. And their pasts. Basically, the movie made sense through the first half, and then started doubling back on itself so may times I lost track. Person A came back from the future to tell himself something to tell Person B so that Person B could discuss it with Person A (current) to enable the whole time travel thing so Person A (future) could come back in time? (And that was the part I understood!) There is an excellent diagram of movie timelines on XKCD, comparing Lord of the Rings, Jurassic Park, the original Star Wars Trilogy, 12 Angry Men, and Primer. Having seen all of those movies, I can honestly state that the following graphic is correct.
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| http://www.xkcd.com/657/ |
My brain is still trying to untangle itself from attempting to understand the full plotline of Primer.
