Cinefantastique Online

Sitting around in the yard of your isolated country home, taking in the air on a quiet day, you would think that a little voyeurism could hardly get you into a world of trouble – even if you are a married, middle-aged man. Strapping on a pair of binoculars and watching a beautiful young woman take off her t-shirt cannot have any life-threatening repercussions. Even if you are curious (or foolish) enough to wonder why she is doing this, sneaking off and taking a closer look cannot lead to danger. Certainly, no harm can befall you under such simple circumstances. Au contraire, warns writer-director Nacho Vigalondo in his science fiction film, TIMECRIMES. Voyeurism can have lethal consequences when combined with a time machine, as you travel back to the past and try to undo what has been done, sending yourself on a labyrinthine journey with potentially catastrophic consequences for your own existence and possibly the world.

This Spanish-language time-travel thriller earned critical kudos when released to art houses last year, and it is not hard to see why. As a director, Nacho Vigalondo sweeps you up into his tale and keeps you running at what seems like full speed toward the finish line; as a writer, he lays out the expostion with admirable clarity, even as events loop back on themselves, creating possible confusion.

The killer?

TIMECRIMES begins innocuously enough, lulling the viewer into a false sense of safety before introducing the mystery-thriller elements. When Hector (Karra Elejalde) investigates in the woods, he finds the young woman apparently dead, and he finds himself pursued by a mysterious man with a bandaged face – presumably the woman’s murderer. This leads to a tense cat-and-mouse chase that sends Hector to a nearby facility seeking shelter, and then the film gets down to telling us what is is really about.

The lab facility

The facility is some kind of experimental lab. The place is empty on a weekend, but the only attendant (director Nacho Vigalondo himself) (whose nervous manner should clue us in that something is up) has turned on a time machine. Hector uses it to go back and prevent the girl’s death, and we learn why the attendant was acting so strangely: he knew Hector was going to arrive at the facility, because Hector had popped out of the time machine a few minutes after it was turned on, explaining why he was there to the attendant, who then had to go through the motions of acting surprised when Hector showed up on foot.

Hector and the victim

If that sounds like a time-twister that will have your brain in knots, the rest of TIMECRIMES works in a similar way. Hector’s effort to change the past runs into interference from a mysterious source, forcing him to go back to an even earlier point in time. The result is three Hectors running around in the same time frame; the problem is that, in attempting to change the past, he must not doing anything to prevent his previous selves from stepping into the time machine. As the attendant explains, all the pieces must fit, or Hector could cease to exist, with who knows what consequences for the time-space continuum. Consequently, Hector finds himself deliberately re-staging action that he had witnessed prevously from a different point of view, such as forcing the woman to take off her shirt, so that his first self, sitting in a lawn chair and watching through his binoculars, will see her and take the fateful steps that will lead him eventually into the time machine.

You won’t need an advanced degree in the Theory of Relativity to see where the twists and turns in the screenplay are headed: straight into a paradox that goes totally unackowledged when the masked man’s identity is revealed. Rather like THE TERMINATOR, TIMECRIMES creates a scenario with a fairly gaping plot hole, in which effect precedes cause, and the only way to rationalize away the problem is to fault human perception of time and imagine that events exist in a fixed, fated loop.

Unfortunately, TIME compounds the crime by suggesting that the laws of cause-and-effect are, indeed, in effect. Although it is hard to be sure in the rush of events, actions seem slightly different each time Hector experiences them, suggesting that his intervention is changing things; he just needs to maintain the illusion of continuity so that the overall flow will remain the same.

This leads to a morally reprehensible ending in which Hector makes a life-and-death decision, saving one character at the expense of another.  Nacho Vigalondo apparently wants us to sympathize with Hector’s dilemma; after all, he didn’t asked to be swept up into this time-travel paradox. The problem is: it’s not totally clear that Hector’s hand is forced by events beyond his control. So much of what he has done in his time-tripping is maintaining an illusion – that is, staging some action so that it will appear to his former self the way he remembers seeing it. What actually happens is another matter, and it is not to impossible to imagine some way of avoiding the dilemma altogether.

To be fair, Hector is a bit pressed for time, so perhaps he we cannot blame him too much for not figuring out some alternative. But the calm way he returns to his former life – forced calm, but calm nonetheless – is quite an affront to the audience when we know he has blood on his hands.

On the other hand, perhaps this vexing conclusion is what gives TIMECRIMES its jolt – makes it more than just an exerciese in playing with time travel paradoxes. The pieces all fit, bringing the story to a satisfying end on a narrative level but leaving the audience with some unpleasant thoughts to consider after the lights have gone back up. An American remake is already in the works; it will be interesting to see if the obligatory happy ending (that will no doubt be added) will resolve the issue or simply feel like a cop out.

This clever film may ultimately be a little too clever for its own good; however, it remains an engrossing adventure that uses time travel to craft an exciting thriller with enough intensity and scares to rival a good horror film. Elejalde is great as Hector: not a leading man type, he is a completely convincing as an ordinary man caught up in a situation almost beyond his understanding. Special effects are virtually non-existant, but this is one science fiction film that does not need them; even the scary appearance of the mysterious figure is simply some bloody bandages wrapped around a face. Whatever its flaws, TIMECRIMES is an excellent example of what can be achieved with good craftsmanship and a lot of imagination.

If you missed TIME CRIMES during its brief theatrical run in 2008, you should catch it on home video. The DVD, which came out this week, includes featurettes, short films, and deleted scenes.

Who is that masked man?

TIME CRIMES  (Los Cronocrimenes, 2007 – released 2008). Written and directed by Nacho Vigalondo. Cast: Karra Elejalda (Hector), Candela Fernandez (Clara), Barbar Goenaga (The Girl in the Forest), Nacho Vigalondo (the Young Scientist).