LOS CRONOCRIMENES (TIME CRIMES)
Spain, 2007, 92 minutes, Colour.
Karra Elejalde, Candela Fernandez, Barbara Goenaga, Nacho Vigalondo.
Directed by Nacho Vigalondo.
Time travel. What if there were the technology to go back in time only an hour or two? How would it affect the past? What if one encountered one's former self? Who would be the real person, the one from the future, the one in the present? And, what if the pattern were repeated?
Instead of Groundhog Day, over and over again, what if it were continued repetitions of the same person over and over again? Cronoscrimines does not exactly answer these questions but it exercises the minds and emotion as we look at a middle-aged man, Hector, who began a quiet Saturday afternoon at home and relived it over again (and over again) but decided to intervene to bring the process to a stop, only to so complicate matters that he was changing his history. There are also consequences for his wife and the girl he sees in the woods. There are more conscience questions and consequences for the young scientist who manages the time machine.
At only 90 minutes, this is quite an effective time travel thriller.
It begins tranquilly enough at the supermarket, then home with the wife working in the garden, the husband having a rest and then relaxing with his binoculars until he spies an unknown woman in the woods. Later, when we realise that he is seeing a situation set up by his second self, the film becomes very interesting as the writer-director cleverly shows us what the first Hector saw from the perspective of the second Hector. Plenty of deja vu all over again.
However, with the two Hectors, the one trying to destroy the other and then prevent him from entering the machine, the plot becomes more eerie with car crashes, stabbings in the woods, sieges of the home...
How can it all end? Can it all end?
This intriguing film not only asks, 'What the Hec?' but also, 'Which the Hec'!
1.A satisfying thriller? Psychological thriller? Experiments in time travel? Philosophical implications?
2.The title, the play on time? The time travel leading to crime?
3.Films about doubles, triples, clones? Identity? The real self? The confrontation of the real self by clones?
4.The ordinary setting, the supermarket, the parking area, the car, the shopping, the house, the gardens, husband and wife, everything normal?
5.Hector, age, love for his wife, sitting in the garden, his wife working, her decision to go shopping? Hector and the binoculars? Seeing the girl, naked, the man with the head swathed, his curiosity?
6.Hector and the search, the pursuit, the girl, the institution, contacting the young man, going inside, being directed by the young man, the laboratories, his help, the time machine, Hector going in and emerging?
7.The transition from daylight to darkness?
8.The young scientist, his explanations, guiding Hector, in the building, alone, the walkie-talkie, the decision to help Hector? Getting him into the machine? The revelation about the experiments? The revelation about the other Hectors?
9.The second Hector emerging from the machine, the potential clash with the first Hector? The scissors, the escape, driving the car, encountering the girl, helping her, in the woods? The first Hector and his being wounded? Going to the house? The second Hector in pursuit? Going to safety, inside the house, on the roof? The dangers? Watching the first Hector? His wife’s death?
10.The repeat of the events in the woods, seeing them from another perspective, the explanations, the return to the laboratory? The young man and his further explanations, suggestions about escape, the time machine? The third Hector? Recreating the events of the past, accurately in order to get rid of the other selves?
11.The tantalising of the audience with the plot and its complexities, an ordinary man and his transformation, the multiple Hectors?
12.The metaphysical implications: the possibilities of such time travel, short distances in time, the travel itself, the cloning, reliving exactly the past, trying to make things normal? Events, chance, accidents changing human plans?
