Timecrimes (Los Cronocrimenes) Review
Written and Directed by: Nacho Vigalondo
Starring: Karra Elejalde, Candela Fernández, Bárbara Goenaga, Nacho Vigalondo

There is a brave new wave of filmmakers coming out of Spain nowadays, and the rest of the world is finally starting to catch on. I’m not just talking about the big boys like Guillermo Del Toro and Alejandro González Iñárritu, but also the directors behind some of the recent genre hits like [REC], The Orphanage and Before the Fall (Tres Dias). The good folks over at Magnolia Pictures decided this year to launch something called The Six Shooter Film Series, which would bring 6 noteoworthy world genre films to North American audiences. They started with Tomas Alfredson’s Let The Right One In and Jeremy Passmore’s Special, and then followed with Nacho Vigalondo’s Timecrimes.

Being a fan of time travel movies — particularly ones that are done with intelligence and some level of believability — I was eager to check this one out. I had heard the comparisons to Primer, but for some reason I was expecting a movie that would be slick and full of special effects. I was pleasantly surprised to find that Timecrimes is actually another intimate, low budget affair starring just four cast members in total. Where Primer truly pushes the limits of comprehension and puzzle solving, however, Timecrimes is much easier to follow, at least in terms of the main plot.

Hector (Karra Elejalde) is middle-aged man moving into a new house in a remote wooded area with his wife. He hasn’t been sleeping well, apparently, and one day while scanning the area with binoculars, he spots a woman in the distance who appears to be taking her clothes off. Intrigued, as any man would be, he goes off to investigate, only to find himself suddenly being chased by a man wearing pink bandages on his face. The chase leads him to a strange building that houses a laboratory of some sort. There he finds a scientist (played by the director himself) who seems to want to help, but ends up getting him to step inside an unidentified machine that suddenly transports him one hour back in time. From here on in, Hector is caught in a time loop as he tries to go back and correct things he did previously, complicating the situation further each time he does.

Like most movies that attempt to seriously address the logic behind time travel, Timecrimes eventually reaches a saturation point where your brain starts to hurt if you try to grasp the whole picture at once. That said, the important thing is that it always feels like the full explanation is within reach, and the story is presented in small chunks to help you along. The way that the chronology unfolds is quite clever and not unlike Christopher Nolan’s Memento, where each pass through the loop leaves little clues that are then followed up on during the next iteration. Sometimes it’s not hard to see where things are heading, but along the way you’re always wondering if something will deviate from the expected path.

The movie maintains a great balance of mystery and interesting imagery that will keep you hooked the whole way through. Although the concept itself was enough to pique my interest, I have to say that the intangible atmosphere is what made me really love this film — also perhaps because it reminded me a little bit of the TV show Lost. It’s hard to put my finger on what exactly the similarities were, but the vague hint of real world science and the eerie musical score by Eugenio Mira are two of the major elements.

Timecrimes is a movie that does a heck of a lot with very little. It is comedic at points — some may argue unintentionally — but it never commits to the same level of realism that Primer does, which works in its favour. None of the characters are very well-developed, but the 88 minute running time does not allow room for much progression anyway. Plot loopholes can be found without too much trouble, and yet, the movie never slows down enough to let us ponder them. Timecrimes is simple enough to be effective, but just complicated enough to be interesting, and if you’re a fan of brainy science-fiction films, you’ll definitely want to track this movie down ASAP.

(A word to the wise: a U.S. remake is in the works… I can’t wait to see how they completely eliminate all the mystery and bog things down with an elaborate backstory!) — Sean

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