Timecrimes
by Nacho Vigalondo
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DVD details
Actor: Karra ElejaldeDirector: Nacho Vigalondo
Brand: TIMECRIMES (DVD MOVIE)
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); Spanish (Original Language); English (Dubbed)
Format: AC-3, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, DVD, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.85:1
Running Time: 92 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2009-03-31
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Model: 10155
Studio: Magnolia Home Entertainment
Product features:
- An ordinary guy takes an extraordinary step through time in this science fiction thriller. Hector (Karra Elejalde) is spending a few days in the countryside with his girlfriend, Clara (Candela Fernndez), when he sees something that catches his attention while playing with his binoculars. Looking at a nearby house near a wooded area, Hector spies a beautiful woman taking her clothes off, and decid
DVD Reviews of Timecrimes
DVD Review: It's Like Déjà Vu All Over Again
Summary: 2 Stars
"Timecrimes (Los Cronocrímenes)" is likely to baffle even the most ardent sci-fi fans. It's a subtitled time travel story that keeps turning back on itself with a series of inane, nonsensical explanations and inexplicable behavior. It seems that writer/director Nacho Vigalondo was just trying to show how clever he can be, piling on a series of interconnecting events that are all the result of one man heedlessly venturing into uncharted territory. But cleverness can only go so far before it becomes hopelessly confused; by the end of the film, I had absolutely no idea what was going on, nor did I understand how any of it could have happened. Certain passages of dialogue are meant to explain it all, but what the characters say makes about as much sense as someone speaking in tongues. To be fair, there's a strong possibility that I missed something along the way. I admit that I'm not the most perceptive of viewers, especially when it comes to something as intentionally misleading as time travel.
In all honesty, I'm not sure I can describe the plot of this movie. Partly, it's because there's so much happening all at once, not all of which I caught on to. But mostly, it's because the story plays like an overactive mystery, with a back-to-back series of revelations. I can, however, describe the setup. Héctor (Karra Elejalde) and his wife, Clara (Candela Fernández), have moved into a spacious home somewhere in the woods of Spain. One day, Héctor receives a mysterious phone call from someone that won't speak. When that person hangs up, Héctor redials the opposite line and gets only an automated message. Later on, as he lounges in his backyard, he looks through his binoculars and sees a young woman taking her shirt off in the middle of the woods. When Clara leaves to get dinner, he decides to go investigate. He finds not only a naked woman lying unconscious, but also a man whose face is wrapped in pink bandages. This man stabs Héctor in the arm with a pair of scissors. Héctor runs. He then seeks refuge in a strange laboratory, where a young scientist (Nacho Vigalondo) tells him to hide inside a metal vat filled with white liquid.
Thus begins a strange, unexplainable sequence of events that involves not one, but three Héctors occupying the same stretch of time, namely the ninety minutes before Héctor arrived at the laboratory. The technology behind the metal vat is left a little obscure, as is the reason for why the scientist seems to know everything about what's going on at all times (or in this case, at that one time). Isn't this impossible given the fact that he's completely outside of Héctor's time loop? Wouldn't he keep forgetting who Héctor is with every trip to the vat? Maybe this is just one of those extra plot details that somehow passed me by. The scientist attempts to explain this warped passage of time with a drawing on the back of a calendar, one that shows a line bending in a Z-shape; at each bend is an X marking each Héctor's position in time. It made sense up until the inclusion of a third Héctor.
The next thing I'm about to say will be annoyingly vague, so you've been warned. When Héctor 1 originally looks through his binoculars, what he sees is the direct result of Héctor 2. Here's what I don't understand: Why would Hector 2 even consider doing those things in the first place? The non-analytical answer is that there wouldn't be a story otherwise. Maybe not, but the fact that a story was formed around events that could have been avoided makes it all the more maddening. My basic reaction was that the entire thing would have been resolved if Hector 2 had stayed put not interfered with the timeline. Really, what's the harm in waiting for everything to smooth itself over? Is the theme of the story that you can't alter the past, no matter how much you want to? Is there even a theme, or is it just supposed to be a sci-fi yarn that shows how fun it is to mess with time?
At this point, I don't think I have any idea what I'm saying. This movie has that effect. "Timecrimes" is a film that only wants to spin in circles and drive the audience into an agonizing state of bewilderment. Few will have the time and the patience to make or tails of the story. Fewer still will believe there's something to make heads or tails of. If there is, in fact, a narrative logic to this movie, I feel ashamed for not having noticed it.
Boy, this movie frustrated me. As much as I replay certain scenes in my head, as much as I keep going over specific events that seemed significant, I'm unfortunately at a loss to explain what it wanted to achieve or if it achieved it. The idea is intriguing, no question. But when you're ultimately left with nothing but a list of questions--the most prominent being, "What?"--I can't help but feel that the idea wasn't developed as well as it should have been. Vigalondo should have paid closer attention to films that got time travel right, like "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban," which cleverly pitted Harry and Hermione against the past during the film's climactic final scenes. Even cinematic gambles like "Next" and "Déjà Vu" managed to keep themselves focused, and they were box office failures. It would be interesting if I could go back in time and watch myself watching "Timecrimes"; while it probably wouldn't help me to understand the film, at least I'd have fun seeing the perplexed look on my face.
Description of Timecrimes
A man being pursued by a murderer stumbles into a mysterious lab and accidentally travels back in time. Studio: Magnolia Pict Hm Ent Release Date: 03/31/2009 Run time: 89 minutes Rating: RThe strangest things can happen during a summer holiday. For ordinary, middle-aged Spaniard Héctor (Karra Elejalde), time bends in on itself. He and his wife, Clara (Candela Fernández), are enjoying the tranquility of their country home when Héctor notices a nude woman in the woods (Bárbara Goenaga). While investigating the situation, a man with a bandaged face stabs his arm with a pair of scissors, and then disappears. In a nearby lab, Héctor meets a technician (writer/director Nacho Vigalondo), who helps him to hide out in a strange hatch. Moments later, Héctor emerges to find he can see his house, his wife, and himself from the top of the hill. The scientist explains that he's observing his "mirror image" from the previous day. After leaving the lab, Héctor runs into the woman from the woods, and the mysterious events from the day before begin to snap into focus, and he realizes he can only set things right by repeating everything that has already happened. The Oscar-nominated Vigalondo's first feature has elicited comparisons to time-travel movies from Back to the Future to Groundhog Day, but in its reliance on clever plotting over special effects, his thriller has more in common with the low-budget Primer. At the time of its release, United Artists announced that David Cronenberg would be handling the English-language remake, which is sure to offer up its own unique twists and turns. Like Christopher Nolan?s Memento, this jigsaw-puzzle picture calls for multiple viewings to make all the pieces fit. --Kathleen C. Fennessy
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