All My Questions About Primer

 

It has taken me almost a week to write this blog post, because I keep telling myself if I take a little more time to digest Primer, I will finally understand it. Turns out, I won't completely understand it no matter how hard I try. So, that's the direction I've decided to run with. 

Purely for authenticity (and for comedic reason), here are the notes I took during the movie. It really shows how much I retained, and where I was clearly grasping for straws. Keep in mind, I was so hypnotized by this film that I stopped taking notes halfway through and closed my laptop, so these points only cover the first half of the film. But, I digress.

Notes:

- sketchy business operation?

- ransom/blackmail call at the beginning?

- they ship out computer parts to use for hacking 

- Philip and Robert vs Aaron and Abe 

- Seems like some people are closer than others, some people are more involved than others 

- I have no idea what they are trying to invent 

- I feel like one of them is evil 

- Why cant they remember anything when they wake up?

And wow. All of my notes are either A) a question that I still cant seem to answer even upon completing the film, or B) a hypothesis that I thought I understood but couldn't be farther from the truth. That's the thing that has me stuck on this film: just when you think you're starting to understand, it takes that and laughs in your face. 

My biggest question is: What the heck happened?

I feel the need to include this graphic that I found, that illustrates the concept of time travel that they present in the film: 

 When I saw this, my mind nearly exploded. This graphic suggests that we could have been following doubles the entire time, when watching it I thought the doubles were this far away thing that we needed to keep the originals away from. Even more terrifying, this graphic suggests that the originals cease to exist the moment they enter the machine, because "his future is only to enter the box."

Absolutely terrifying. 

That begs the question, how different are the doubles from one another? Clearly not very far off, seeming as I didn't notice the differences between iterations of the characters, other than the verbally stated changes such as their handwriting, bleeding ear, etc. 

Then, there's this other graphic that seems to detail the order of events as clearly as one can attempt to: 

I am absolutely stunned at the complexity of this film, all while draping a veil of science and mystery over the viewer's eyes. I had no idea during my first viewing the depth of everything that was happening, because I was so desperate to understand the surface level. But, with primer, you learn in reverse: Analyze the depth in order to reveal the surface level. Brilliant.

What are your questions about Primer? Maybe we can discuss in the comments below.