Primer

[SteK]

Anyone got through it and followed it?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primer_(film)

A good 'helper'....

http://www.nobleworld.biz/images/Gendler.pdf

[studpuppet]

[Bad Ambassador]

Yes, I just about followed it on my first viewing.

[Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth]

I watched it once and didn't follow it. I needed a primer.

I did laugh/sneer a little a few years later, when I saw people making similar guides for Inception and Looper. I'm as thick as a brick and neither of those films were remotely confusing.

[greenman]

I thought Upstream Colour was complete bollocks so haven't bothered with it.

[popcorn]

I saw someone once, maybe here, say that Primer is what you'd get if you made a film those "Everything wrong with <film>" pricks could not criticise. It is a film of pure, pitiless logic. It makes absolute sense, in the way that computer code makes absolute sense, but cannot be understood or enjoyed by normal human beings.

So in that regard it's fascinating. But I wish I could say I wasn't bored shitless by it.

I did, however, enjoy this step-by-step explanation of it. It makes me wonder if the plot is simply so impenetrable it simply can't be told as a film, and would instead have made a terrific novel, where you have the time and opportunity to spell things out explicitly, and the reader can easily reread things.

Look at this excerpt from that explanation:

"So which box did Abe use to come back in time? Logically, Abe must have used Failsafe Box C, since Failsafe Box A contained Hooded Aaron and Failsafe Box B contained Aaron Three. How did that happen? Aaron must have SWAPPED Failsafe Box A and Failsafe Box C. The box that Abe believed was Failsafe Box A (anchored 05:00 Monday) was actually Failsafe Box C (anchored 05:30 Monday). This is not seen or even alluded to in the film, but it is necessary to resolve this plot hole."

If that's correct, it really sounds like the film cannot be understood on its own terms.

[bgmnts]

Couldn't finish it, way too easy to guess what was going to happen and didnt stimulate me.

[dissolute ocelot]

I thought Upstream Colour was complete bollocks so haven't bothered with it.

I hope Upstream Colour wasn't expected to make sense, but it was at least interesting to go along for the ride. Primer in contrast is kind of dull whether you understand it or not: although it's not entirely mechanical, it does involve largely boring characters in boring locations doing boring things for the sake of confusing you. It's like watching a magician who instead of sawing a pretty lady in half, saws a piece of wood in half, and instead of showing you the wood afterwards, just says "and it's not really cut in half" and walks off stage.

[PlanktonSideburns]

i read it as a pisstake of the sort of dorks who work in silicone valley - loved it when i first saw it, didnt follow it at all, didn't feel like that was the point

feels like a misanthropic and possibly misogynist film also, wife just hangs around in the back like an ornament, gets a fridge bought, makes them snacks

[greenman]

I hope Upstream Colour wasn't expected to make sense, but it was at least interesting to go along for the ride.

Something like Aleksei German's work I'd say besides being vastly more interesting a "ride" uses the confusion towards a more dramatic end were as here it felt to me like the film was glorying in its own obtuseness.

[purlieu]

I absolutely loved Upstream Colour, thought it was a really beautiful film. The score helped that a lot. Thought it was relatively easy to follow too.

Primer is obviously a ludicrous film. Worth seeing just for the sake of watching something so unnecessarily complex and serious. I might rewatch it with one of the many graphs one day, just to see if I can follow it with my hand being held.