kickaha: (Default)
kickaha ([personal profile] kickaha) wrote2005-08-02 11:21 pm

Am I missing something?

Just watched Primer, after months of having folks tell me it was an amazing mind-fuck, and avoiding all spoilers.

So, um, where was the mind-fuck? Seemed like a pretty straight-forward time travel story with multiple causality loops. Well done definitely, but I kept waiting for the big wowzer moment, and then the credits rolled. Ernh?

Seriously, did I miss something?

Edit: Yes, I loved it. :) Just wondering, seriously, if the DVD skipped a chapter or something. Not because it didn't make sense, but because it *did*. My one naggling question was Rachel's Dad. That seemed ambiguous.

(Watch it, if you haven't.)

[identity profile] eridan.livejournal.com 2005-08-03 03:30 am (UTC)(link)
Yup.

Either that or you just didn't have as much fun with it as I did.

[identity profile] badger.livejournal.com 2005-08-03 03:34 am (UTC)(link)
If it didn't work for you, it didn't work for you. I thought it was a decently handled time travel story that probably impressed people who hadn't dealt with this kind of topic before. The most notable fact of the film is that it exists at all: the director made the film for $7000 total. It's encouraging to the amateur film maker.

[identity profile] dollraves.livejournal.com 2005-08-03 04:07 am (UTC)(link)
Nah... I watched. And though I thought it was amazing and even twisty, I didn't consider it even remotely a mindfuck. Like you, I thoroughly enjoyed it, but I didn't see why everyone was raving. *shrug*

As my friend Byron put it after watching it, "That Emperor there ain't got no clothes..."

[identity profile] icebluenothing.livejournal.com 2005-08-03 05:34 am (UTC)(link)
It's not really much of a mindfuck; most of what happens is pretty straight-forward, although poorly-explained in an "oh-look-aren't-we-clever-by-not-telling-you-jack" kind of way, I thought.

But yeah, Rachel's dad is ambiguous, and is meant to be. The characters don't know where the hell he came from, so neither do we.