Film: Timecrimes
Release date: 4th May 2009
Certificate: 15
Running time: 88 mins
Director: Nacho Vigalondo
Starring: Karra Elejalde, Candela Fernández, Bárbara Goenaga, Nacho Vigalondo, Juan Inciarte
Genre: Sci-Fi/Mystery/Thriller
Studio: Optimum
Format: DVD
Country: Spain
The concept of fate, of how much it controls us and how much we are its masters, is a familiar one to both filmmakers and viewers. You could be excused for thinking that there is no new way to explore the idea in a time travel story, the dangers of interfering with your past or even past-selves having been done to death. Hasn’t Marty McFly shown us all we need to know?
Héctor and Clara, a happily married middle-aged couple, have just moved into a new home. It’s the weekend and Hector is enjoying a quiet day, when all of a sudden, looking through some binoculars, he spots a naked girl in the woods bordering his property. Going to investigate, Héctor is attacked and stabbed in the arm by a man whose head is swathed in pink bandages. Running for his life, he breaks into a nearby business and makes contact with El Joven, an employee working late somewhere in the grounds.
With darkness falling, Héctor is lured to a laboratory by the scientist Joven and is persuaded to hide from the bandaged man in a machine, which Joven promptly closes and activates. One brief moment later, the machine is opened; it is day once more and Joven no longer recognizes him. Peering through his binoculars at his house next door, Héctor sees himself as he was the hour previous, spying on a naked girl at the bottom of his garden. After quickly being brought up to speed by Joven – that he has, in fact, travelled one hour back in time – Héctor (now referring to himself as Héctor 2) promises not to interfere with his earlier self and leaves, not yet realising that he is inextricably linked to the events about to unfold for Héctor 1…
It was the scene at the very end of another, perhaps slightly more famous time travel movie that really caught the imagination of many teenagers. Marty McFly, our boy hero from Back To The Future, watches himself as he escapes Libyan terrorists and disappears back in time, a scene from the beginning of the film. The concept of watching oneself from an earlier time offers plenty of scope, and by having a similar scene present very early on in Timecrimes, director Vigalondo manipulates established, longstanding celluloid DNA for a new, discerning audience.
He must have used a flowchart. It’s the only way (Nacho) Vigalondo could have kept track of the multiple storylines and timelines involved in his clever screenplay. Our hero, Héctor, a balding, portly, middle-aged everyman played wonderfully by Karra Elejalde, is soon one of multiple incarnations of himself. We start and stay with Héctor 1, glimpsing and hearing the other Héctors as he does. The smart, different and therefore refreshing change with this time traveller is that he is almost at once aware of what has happened. Not only that, as soon as he realises he is part of the very events he has experienced, he simply accepts the situation and gets on with making sure he repeats the actions he has already witnessed. Whilst this may seem clunky on paper, it is in fact a very smart move by Vigalondo. Acres of dialogue of heavy exposition and characters asking the usual sort of “What if…?” questions are abandoned, and instead our protagonist is imbibed with the same knowledge and intelligence we the audience are already privy to. And by staying with our Héctor the whole time, we are thankfully spared the tedium of watching the same scene over and over but merely filmed from a different angle, a ruse this genre usually throws up. Indeed, just as this cliché would seem to be inevitable, a new factor is thrown into the mix, forcing Héctor to tap into ever darker sides of his character and to make some serious, life altering decisions. After all, time travel never has been easy.
If all this is making Timecrimes sound complicated and hard going, it really isn’t. In fact, up until almost the final act, it’s a total breeze to follow, never demanding you make a mental map of where Héctor has been, what he’s done, or which Héctor you’re actually watching. Vigalondo’s background in shorts is, perhaps, the very reason it plays so well, for you could view the entire 90 minutes as a series of shorts, each dealing with the same story from a different point along its timeline. Héctor himself can be almost viewed as several different aspects of the same character for with each new decision he takes he becomes harder, colder and ever more ruthless. It barely takes any time at all before he casually decides to kill one of his doppelgängers in an attempt to get his life back, a far cry from the everyday, carefree husband we meet at the beginning,.
A sequel has been rumoured and the inevitable Hollywood remake is due in 2012 with Tom Cruise in the Héctor role, about as far a cry from the affable man portrayed by Elejalde as possible. One can only imagine how (badly) it will have to be rewritten to accommodate him.
Great Scott! A decidedly non-heavy, breezy, intelligent time travel caper that reinvents a tired sub-genre with style, panache and humour. JMB
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