Primer (Film)
- Shane Carruth: Aaron
- David Sullivan: Abe
- Casey Gooden: Robert
- Anand Upadhyaya: Phillip
- Carrie Crawford: Kara
Primer is an American science fiction film directed by Shane Carruth from 2004 in which it comes to the accidental discovery of a time machine and its consequences. The film is characterized by a very low budget of $ complex technical dialogues and an unorthodox narrative structure only 7000. At the 2004 Sundance Film Festival, he won among others the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Award for films that deal with science and technology.
Action
The engineers Aaron, Abe, Robert and Phillip build in their spare JTAG cards to then sell and finance scientific projects. After a dispute over their next target Aaron and Abe begin alone to implement a machine that can reduce the mass of objects. After they have completed a prototype, they note that the machine provides more electricity than it consumes. The two decide on the project to keep quiet until they have figured out exactly how this effect works.
After several months, Abe finds out that within a few days a fungus is grown in the machine to a size that will be needed for years actually. Further experiments lead him and Aaron to believe that objects in the machine in a loop between the time of entry remain in the machine and its turning on, they break through after several runs, so that elapsed from the perspective of the object much more time is. You suspect that a person can break this loop by its own leaves the machine, and thus can travel backwards through time.
Abe build and test a prototype in secret, which is large enough for a man. He switched on the box in the morning and rises later in the day, so he travels back to shortly after switching on the machine. When the test is positive, he told Aaron it. The two build a second box and repeat Abes procedure the next day, use the time in the hotel rooms but this time to watch stock prices. After you have traveled back, they use their knowledge of the market trend to make money. This procedure repeat for a while until they are one day on the way to the machines by Thomas Granger, father of Abe's friend Rachel, persecuted, they had as an investor want to win. Although Aaron has seen him a few hours before clean-shaven, he looks now as if his beard grown for several days. They believe that Granger was hergereist with one of the boxes from a time several days in the future, even if they can not explain, so he has experienced from the time machine. When they want to confront him, he is unconscious.
Abe uses a third box, which ran for emergencies since the day on which it is the first time traveled through time to return to that day. He stunned his former self and takes its place, but when he meets up with Aaron says this regardless of Abe's remarks exactly the same as in the situation when it happened the first time. Abe collapses. When he wakes up, Aaron tells him that he, after he has traveled in the past, has received from an earlier version of himself records of all conversations of the day. These have found and used to bring itself and the components for another time machine to the past where they have assembled it and swapped with Abe's emergency box, so Abe can go back anyway and not Aaron's body would be found in the emergency box the emergency box. Subsequently, this later version of Aaron had left the city. On the day on which Abe has for the first time used the time machine, Roberts birthday party was held at the Rachel's ex-boyfriend threatened her with a gun. Aaron had invited them and therefore feels guilty. His plan is, Rachel's ex-boyfriend to stop and put behind bars.
Aaron and Abe pursue this plan together on. It is implied that they are going through several times the same evening, until they stage the perfect rescue and have success. After that, the two quarrel, however, and go their separate ways. The version of Aaron, who took the pictures and then leave the city, tells the whole story of a stranger, to whom he seems to owe something on the phone and then starts with the construction of a time machine the size of a warehouse.
Production
After completing his mathematics studies Carruth worked in various companies as an engineer before he decided after a few attempts as an author to pursue a career in film. Over the period of a year, he developed the screenplay, which he also thoroughly dealt with physics to keep the conversations of his characters as authentic as possible.
The film was shot within five weeks in various private houses and apartments in Dallas. Despite the low budgets, Carruth analog 35mm film decided to use, which meant that each scene was first rehearsed in detail without cameras because the record multiple takes would have been too expensive.
Reception
Primer was added mainly positive. Rotten Tomatoes indicates that 73 % of the reviews were positive and 79 % of the audience the film rated as good (as of March 2013). According to Metacritic awarded critic average of 68 out of 100. Kim Newman from Empire refers to the plot of the film as " as much a mystery as a story," and recommends the film only viewers who are already familiar with time travel matter. Other critics, such as Michael O'Sullivan of the Washington Post, pause the movie for overly complex. O'Sullivan writes that the film is " cut with a sense of concealment, which seems to be deliberate, almost perverse, intended pleasure (or a simple understanding ) to prevent " and criticized that the film the effort to complete understanding must be operated, not adequately reward.