Interstellar: 10 Superior Philosophical Sci-Fi Films
4. Primer
Speaking of tough watches, its pretty much guaranteed that youre going to have to watch Shane Carruths singularly genius and incomprehensible time travel film more than once. Possibly with a book with which to take copious notes. Thankfully Primers only 77 minutes long, which makes repeat viewings fairly easy; unfortunately, before he became a one-man film studio (he writes, directs, stars in, produces, edits and composes the music for the movie), Carruth was a college graduate with a degree in mathematics and a former engineer. And he is very much a believer in not talking down to the audience. All well and good until you decide to make the most scientifically accurate film about time travel to date. Like Interstellar, Primer deals with existing scientific concepts and extrapolates them a little further. What it never does is couch that in a conventional narrative, or ever "dumb down" all the jargon for the layman. Youll inevitably get lost. Even more so when the time travel causes alternate versions of the characters to begin piling up, manipulating each other and the stock market to make their millions, all the while bringing up questions about the nature of self when copies can be so easily created, and the ethics of playing god in such a way. Probably. Maybe another viewing is in order...
Tom Baker is the Comics Editor at WhatCulture! He's heard all the Doctor Who jokes, but not many about Randall and Hopkirk. He also blogs at http://communibearsilostate.wordpress.com/
