I think this may be the best movie about time travel - featuring an actual time machine, anyway - that I've seen to date.
It is the first feature-length from Nacho Vigalondo, and is an eerie, low budget, surprisingly twisty time travel tale. Beginning with a slow paced (and apparently fairly simple) plot, it gradually ramps itself up until what we thought was very little happening was actually - is actually - will actually be - a hectic violent twisting hour of hell. 'Timecrimes' takes a fairly simple idea and expands it in a way that so many other time travel movies fail to do. It doesn't throw in a load of effects or a futuristic setting, it doesn't even have more than four characters, but this allows it to focus on its central conceit and explore it in detail.
I'll do you all a solid and try not to go into too much detail of the plot (this is the sort of movie that you really don't want to spoil) but suffice to say it involves a paradox, some scissors, and some very creepy situations.
And now we enter the spoilery part of the review. Hector travels back twice (so there are three Hectors running around during the hour), each time having learnt more about his situation. Hector 1 is simply reacting to events, seeing the woman, being stabbed, being tricked into the time machine. Hector 2, though, is figuring out how this whole time travel thing works, and acts as a slave to it - he wraps himself in bandages, forces the woman to undress, and stabs Hector 1. But by the time Hector 3 comes around, he understand that whatever he does in the past, it's already happened. The only wriggle room he has left at this point is the Schrödinger's cat-type situation (and the bicycle-riding woman even has a t-shirt that references this) to do with his (dead?) wife, and (possibly?) mistaken identity.
What really interests me though is his actions as/during Hector 2. As soon as he realises that he was the bandaged man all along, he sets out to copy the bandaged man's actions. So... Where do these actions come from? He was only doing what he did because that's what he saw, but he only saw that because he made it happen later. I really like this question, as these events are just coming out of nothing, and they're so odd. Why did the woman take her top off, then look off to her left and put her thumb to her mouth? why did the bandaged man stab Hector? Is there some reality in which the bandaged man really was a third (or second) party? I think ultimately they come down to Hector's own psyche. That the details of what happened/will happen/is happening are because of some unconscious part of him. It's a disturbing thought, and it bolsters my opinion that Hector really is the villain of his own story, and this whole sequence of events is akin to some sort of self-inflicted tartarus-style punishment for not paying enough attention to his wife (though come on, that table was never going to fit through the door*).
At least that's how I interpret it. This is totally the sort of loopy-ass movie that one can read into way too much, and enjoy doing so. I think I'd get bored of it, but only after the 5th or 6th re-watch. Difficult to give higher praise than that, really.
*...But it did. Ever notice that? How is it inside to be thrown by Hector 3 and smash on Hector 2's head? It's either inside or it's outside, right? Or it can be both and neither too. Damn cats.
What really interests me though is his actions as/during Hector 2. As soon as he realises that he was the bandaged man all along, he sets out to copy the bandaged man's actions. So... Where do these actions come from? He was only doing what he did because that's what he saw, but he only saw that because he made it happen later. I really like this question, as these events are just coming out of nothing, and they're so odd. Why did the woman take her top off, then look off to her left and put her thumb to her mouth? why did the bandaged man stab Hector? Is there some reality in which the bandaged man really was a third (or second) party? I think ultimately they come down to Hector's own psyche. That the details of what happened/will happen/is happening are because of some unconscious part of him. It's a disturbing thought, and it bolsters my opinion that Hector really is the villain of his own story, and this whole sequence of events is akin to some sort of self-inflicted tartarus-style punishment for not paying enough attention to his wife (though come on, that table was never going to fit through the door*).
At least that's how I interpret it. This is totally the sort of loopy-ass movie that one can read into way too much, and enjoy doing so. I think I'd get bored of it, but only after the 5th or 6th re-watch. Difficult to give higher praise than that, really.
*...But it did. Ever notice that? How is it inside to be thrown by Hector 3 and smash on Hector 2's head? It's either inside or it's outside, right? Or it can be both and neither too. Damn cats.
Timecrimes: 88.6