Monkey

We watched Primer again recently. We saw it a while ago, probably shortly after it first came out in 2004, and I’ve remembered it off and on since then, so I decided to put it back on the Netflix queue. I had believed that watching it again I would understand it fully beginning to end, and I thought I was doing well until the last 5 min or so, when I lost it. Argh! It’s a complicated movie, presented somewhat out of order and they try to close up all the gaps with a series of flashbacks at the end. It comes out a smidge confusing, but it’s a good movie. I like a few things about it: their take on time travel, and the portrayal of the process of inventing the device. It’s that process of invention that I like about The World’s Fastest Indian, too.

At any rate, I highly recommend Primer. After you watch it you’ll probably be confused, but that’s okay. There is a fantastic graphic that illustrates the various timelines in the movie, who goes where when, and what the up-shot is. This entire graphic is one big spoiler, so don’t follow the link until you’ve watched the movie: http://neuwanstein.freeweb.hu/primer_timeline.html. I think the graphic is accurate in every aspect of the movie that is fact. I think it’s a bit off in one or two places where they had to speculate, because some parts of the movie are indefinite, but the ways in which it is off aren’t that big of a deal.