Primer.

Primer is a 2004 science fiction time travel movie, starring Shane Carruth and David Sullivan. The direction, writing, score and editing was done by Shane Carruth himself, all in just under a budget of 7000 dollars. I know, sounds like a waste of time, doesn't it? Probably cheap and poorly directed?
Allow me to tell you, it is the FARTHEST from these.

I'm an avid fan of all things time. Time, especially travelling in time, is a concept that fascinated ever since I learnt about it. Books and movies involving time and its paradoxes excite me beyond words. Primer, with its great reviews and strong cult following, was a movie I looked forward to watching. However, this 77-minute long feature left me utterly confused the first time I saw it. Frankly, yes, a little disappointed. But then, I researched the film, broke it down to the minutest of details, and let me tell you, every single words uttered in the movie, every single scene, however so it may seem insignificant, is very important. The dialogues are the keys to unlocking its complexity, so before you watch I might suggest turning on the subtitles. As a result, when I finally (sort-of) understood it, I would hail it as one of the best (if not THE BEST) time travel movie ever made. Now, I don't say this in terms of direction or scoring or cinematography. But, in terms of sheer originality and authenticity, as well as in the handling of a subject so fragile as time, this movie is, in all formality, awesome.

The movie starts off with four engineer friends building a machine to apparently reduce the weight of an object by cutting of its connection to earth's gravity, untethering it from the surroundings. The first ten minutes involves heavy usage of technical terms, involving superconductivity at extreme low temperatures (the physics is quite accurate, in fact), but this isn't important. The movie really begins to pick up pace soon after this. The machine they built turns out to be a time machine and can be used to travel back in time. Now from here on out, the movie requires complete and wholehearted attention. However, no matter how attentive you are, there is a point, about 3/4th into the movie when everyone loses track. I myself had to watch the movie three times to get a good grasp on things.

Yes, it has bad cinematography, yes, bad lighting, but nothing in the least looks cheap. The density and inherent paradoxical contradictions make this movie extremely complex and confusing, but all one requires is the slightest smallest idea on what is going to understand that this film is nothing short of mindblowing. Keep in mind, this movie depicts exactly what would happen if the delicate construct of time is disturbed even in the slightest way and the unthinkable consequences of what would follow. Time, if taken to be like, in every way, distance or weight, then in a technical sense, the movie is absolutely spot-on.

With the gears of my mind still whirring, and my heart still pumping, I mean it, honestly and truthfully, when I say : Shane Carruth is a bona fide genius.

9/10.