Low Budget Time Travel Fims: Primer and TimeCrimes

Most time travel movies are about the spectacle of the event; driving 88 mph then flashing back in time, or getting whirled around like inside a tornado then reappearing in the new time period. In both of these films there are no such scenes. In fact, in Primer you barely get glimpses of what the machine is, and hardly an explanation for how it works. In Timecrimes, you see the big machine, but the movie keep moving on. For both films, it's fine, because they aren't about the spectacle as much about the ramifications of time travel. Both send people backwards a small time period and deal with disturbing the  past.

Primer - The film follows two engineer scientists who discover their device is actually a time machine that can send objects back in time. As they experiment with it, using themselves as the bait, their lives become more and more complicated with multiple selves crossing time paths. That's as good an explanation of the plot as I can give, because the last third of the film is so complicated and unexplained that it ventures beyond comprehension. That's the way it's supposed to be, as the movie becomes as complicated as their lives. The film starts jumping around, starting scenes too late and skipping over vital plot points, so you as the viewer are disoriented and always one step behind. Generally by the end, it kind of all makes sense, but only because the narration helps and you still just get a broad picture. The film requires further viewings to get a better idea of the details of their time tromping. They start out like normal guys, with no problems or moral dilemmas, but then with this device they are faced with bigger and bigger moral issues. If you had a machine that could help do a day over, how would you use it? Would you play the stock market, save a girl's life at a party to look like a hero? As the questions get bigger, they find themselves bending and then breaking their time traveling rules to help themselves. The film is a great moral tale, and the sketchy last third helps visualize the complexities of life after personal rules are bent and broken. It's a remarkable indie film that shows that with a great idea, anyone can make a film for $7,000.

Timecrimes - This movie is so bare and so deep at the same time, it's mind blowing. The mindblowingness of that is only overshadowed by the mind blowing quality of the paradoxical implications in the film. In my best effort I'll try to sum up the plot. A man gets into a time machine, seemingly by accident, and travels back to the beginning of the day. He doesn't realize at first when he is, even though the man running the machine tries to tell him, while keeping him close to not screw up things. But the man endeavors to not only screw things up, but lay the foundation for him getting into the time machine. The things he saw that day, from a naked woman in the woods, to a man wrapped in bandages, were all caused by his back in time self. The film is actually really easy to follow, unlike Primer, which makes it great. Even with the time traveling, the movie has a really easy through-line that even Marty McFly could understand.
I loved many things about the film. It felt like the Fargo of time travel films. This guy just bumbles along, at times not knowing what the hell is going on, and at other times trying to make right, but causing the demise of the situation. You laugh when he hurts himself, or falls over, but yet there aren't any outright jokes, you're just following this idiot ruin his own life. The film also reminded me of classic Greek tragedies, where men cannot escape fate. Especially, Oedipus, where no matter what Oedipus' father can't avoid his own murder by his son. It's as if this is a science fiction tragedy, this guy both can't avoid the tragedy and yet he's causing it himself.
This film, like Primer, is great because it doesn't need special effects or DeLoreans to make a tight, intriguing time travel movie. They both look beyond their means, and that comes from being smart and having a great story. I recommend both of these highly.