4 out of 5 stars

Fungus growing at an unprecedented rate. Blood trickling out of your ear and worryingly illegible scrawls. A loss of memory. The unshakeable sensation that you’re being followed, tracked, and hunted by someone unnervingly familiar. What’s worse? Thinking you’re being paranoid, or knowing you should be?

All of these are the unfortunate, unavoidable results of time travel in Shane Carruth’s Primer, arguably the most unsettling science-fiction film to deal with the subject. Intellectual engineers Aaron (Shane Carruth) and Abe (David Sullivan) work tirelessly to create a machine that will land them a lucrative patent. The pair bicker with their co-workers, and it seems as though the fledgling careers of these designers are doomed to become mediocre.

But one day, as they tinker in the garage with a machine that electromagnetically reduces the weight of objects, they discover that there may be more to this device than they had initially predicted—far more. When the box begins exhibiting temporal anomalies, they consider the potential a bigger box may have; a machine like that could rend the laws of physics into abstract pieces. As the inventors continue their theorising, they’re faced with a daunting, terrifying question: what if it actually works?

Time travel is a concept that has perplexed mankind for decades. 1881’s The Clock That Went Backward by Edward Page Mitchell is considered by many to be the first story on the subject. Fourteen years later, H.G Wells’ 1895 novel The Time Machine made an indelible imprint on readers’ minds about the possibilities available to those who wielded such power. As Carruth makes clear in Primer, the potential for calamity is incredibly great—perhaps even inevitable.

This is a sensation present from the onset of Abe and Aaron’s investigations. One cannot help but suspect that the chickens will eventually come home to roost, regardless of the timeline. Things are set in motion that can’t be undone. The allure of power blinds two curious souls from the disaster they are creating. And no matter how prescient they consider themselves to be, no matter the godlike power that exists in their hands, they begin to fear that the genie cannot be placed back inside the bottle, that there are just some discoveries which should be left unexplored.

Perhaps the opening monologue is enough for us to understand that this loop features dark turns: an unfamiliar voice addresses someone directly over a phone call, commanding them to listen carefully, not to interrupt, nor speak for any reason. Carruth’s film succeeds at becoming an uncommonly disquieting piece because the surreal events that unfold feel very real. Our first-time director achieves this realism through natural dialogue and a mounting sensation of paranoia.

This can first be felt when we’re introduced to our two protagonists: Abe and Aaron. They think through their entrepreneurial endeavours linearly, using rational thought to tackle any obstacle. However, it’s immediately felt that their logical thinking is contrasted by a duplicitous nature. It’s apparent from their behaviour that they harbour interior desires, and ulterior motives: not everything inside the human heart can be plotted out on a graph.

Sometimes, this theme of deceit is expressed directly. Aaron refuses to bring his previous co-workers onto the project, wanting to keep the discovery for himself and Abe. This self-centred approach to discovery is immensely important; when things begin happening that the pair cannot explain, an air of distrust and suspicion forms between them. One small conversation is all we need to see their capacity for lying: they are backstabbers, content to conceal the truth in an attempt to get ahead.

This desire to get ahead ironically leads them to travel back in time—to get ahead again. Yes, it’s a bit of a head-scratcher. But it makes for a very human approach to time-bending physics. Their fatal error was to mistake the end result of their logical programming as something that exists within their control; the enigmatic nature of human behaviour is not as rational as their precious science.

Such mysteries cause irreparable problems. Their lives soon become a recursive nightmare. Paranoia mounts as they believe that they cannot trust each other, which in turn makes solving their time-warping dilemma more of a chimaera. But they had known there were risks in venturing so deep into the unknown; they had fears of the box before their lives had become something unsolvable. When Aaron asks Abe about the safety of the machine, Abe replies honestly: “Aaron, I can imagine no way in which this thing could be considered anywhere remotely close to safe.”

Primer is unlike any other time travel film that I can think of. For starters, their time machine is never referred to as such: it’s only ever called “the box.” Secondly, nothing is ever explained in Carruth’s seminal feature debut. What makes this film exceptionally rewatchable—as well as profoundly disturbing—is that we’re left to work things out for ourselves. Signs of time travel appear, but we are unsure what they mean. Sounds in the attic, characters waking in strange places, or a confused man sporting a sudden beard are enough for us to become alarmed.

Primer, much like the best of sci-fi horror, is something akin to a cautionary tale. Our genius scientists are initially dismissive of the potential for things to go wrong, to spiral out of control: “I really don’t believe in any of those paradoxes anyway, you know, kill your mom before you’re born, whatever. It must work itself out, somehow.” They tragically underestimate the number of turns one simple problem can have.

This is, of course, until things become suddenly overwhelming. Once they understand how many answers a single question can prompt, it becomes apparent that it’s too late to undo the damage that has been done: “The permutations were endless… they tried again going to the source,” the disembodied voice on the phone ominously intones. “From this, they deduced that the problem was recursive; but, beyond that, found themselves admitting, against their own nature, and once again, that the answer was unknowable.” Their maths may be infallible, but humans, unfortunately, are not.   

Our two main characters certainly understand the maths; occasionally, we are inundated with engineer jargon. It impressively never sounds like science-fiction mumbo-jumbo, probably owing to Carruth’s former career as a software engineer and his studies in mathematics. Consequently, it truly feels as though we are witnessing time-bending innovation take place.

Keen not to dumb down the material, Carruth’s screenplay will likely go over the layperson’s head. It went over my head the first couple of times I watched it (and I’m probably giving myself too much credit in suggesting I now grasp it). Fortunately, Primer is a film that can be enjoyed by anyone, because it’s not really about understanding everything that transpires. Carruth has confessed that he himself cannot logically account for everything that happens in the film—if his protagonists can’t, why should he?

Even if it isn’t comprehended completely, this time-travelling nightmare can still be enjoyed as a thrilling exercise in film structure and editing. Much like Memento (2000), it’s a complex puzzle to be enjoyed over multiple viewings, with most of the pleasure being elicited from the attempt to unravel the cerebral structure.

Outside the elaborate narrative design, the film possesses poignant symbolism. Aaron dribbling a basketball around his waist mirrors their unstoppable, unstable gyrating through time. Abe’s concern over gas leaks in the machine is emblematic of the branches that soon grow in what should be a linear timeline. As he laments: “There’s always leaks…” In this, Abe serves as a direct manifestation of the duo’s compunction. His surname (Terger) spelt backwards indicates his final opinion of their endeavour, as well as his methods to correct what ails him: go backwards in time, again and again, until the whole mess can be fixed.

In addition to this, the editing is starkly refined and efficient, demonstrating a sort of time-travel of its own; there is occasionally very little connection between the sound and the image. How can we believe that what we see always matches what we hear? Incongruities in image and dialogue lead us to believe we’re not being given the full picture—are these the same characters we knew at the beginning of the story? What crucial information have we not been given?

Besides these intelligent filmmaking choices, Carruth’s film possesses intriguing themes, which are plainly understood (even if the plot is not). Through an incredibly heady atmosphere of confusion and disbelief, we’re left pondering the film’s ideas. As the tagline reads: if you always want what you can’t have, what do you want when you can have anything? This, again, is a paradox. The power our characters are imbued with allows them to have anything, but all they want is to rid themselves of the incredible power, which proves to be an impossible feat.

Perhaps the duo always refer to their time machine as “the box” because it’s supposed to mirror Pandora’s Box, the symbol of human curiosity and the inescapable chaos it can unleash. We are naturally inquisitive, which is perhaps the one thing that Abe and Aaron forget to factor into their long equations. This oversight has tragic consequences: “Why can’t we write like normal people?!” Abe screams, desperate and frightened. Aaron shakes his head, quietening: “I don’t know… I can see the letters… I know what they should look like, I just can’t get my hand to make them easily.”

A copy of a copy of a copy, a human Xerox that sees no end to the torturous riddle of an existence they now must lead. They have betrayed each other (and themselves) countless times, in more timelines than they could possibly imagine. There are at least three films inside one, turning our characters into little more than Matryoshka dolls. One double eliminates the next, with a triplet soon to follow. As one timeline swallows another, it signifies that there truly is no exit off this rollercoaster: their lives become dramatic renditions of Ouroboros, an eternity spent fruitlessly devouring themselves.

Without an end, where do we leave our protagonists? Precisely where they didn’t want to be. At one point in the film, Aaron warns his partner: “The worst thing to know is that the moment you’re experiencing has already been defined, that this is the second, or third, or fourth time through. […] And then you start to wonder—what caused this? How did things get like this?” It’s an answer they’ll never be able to provide, a riddle they are incapable of solving; any attempt to rectify mistakes only drags them deeper into the quagmire.

And as our ominous narrator concludes his tale, he warns whoever he’s listening—-Abe? A double?—that any endeavour to fix the mess they created is utterly without hope: “Now I have repaid any debt I may have owed you. You know all that I know. […] You will not be contacted by me again. And if you look—you will not find me.” 

We are trapped in the mystery, yearning for a solution, a remedy, or at least a reliable exit from this metaphysical nightmare we have stumbled upon. But we are denied it. We are left in the same despairing position, regretting that this box was ever opened. And so we come to a startling realisation: although the unexamined life is not worth living, if examined too closely, you may soon discover, with great horror, that you have no life left at all.

USA | 2004 | 77 MINUTES | 1.85:1 | COLOUR | ENGLISH

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Cast & Crew

writer & director: Shane Carruth.
starring: Shane Carruth, David Sullivan, Casey Gooden, Anand Upadhyaya, Carrie Crawford, Samantha Thomson & Brandon Blagg.