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Timecrimes
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| Year: |
2007
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Director: |
Nacho Vigalondo
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| Stars: |
Karra Elejalde, Candela Fernández, Bárbara Goenaga, Nacho Vigalondo, Juan Inciarte
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| Genre: |
Thriller, Science Fiction |
| Rating: |
  7 (from 2 votes) |
| Review: |
Hector (Karra Elejalde) returns home to his country house which he shares with his wife Clara (Candela Fernández). They have recently moved in and she is attending to the home furnishings, such as a new table for the bedroom which she plans to assemble, and while she does that Hector retires upstairs to rest. However sleep does not come easily, and eventually he is forced to rise when the telephone rings, although there is nobody replying when he picks it up. He calls the number which was not withheld, but only gets an answering machine, so thinking little of it ventures out into the garden to settle in a deckchair. You'll never guess what he sees then...
Timecrimes, or Los cronocrímenes if you were Spanish, was an eminently pleasing gimmick movie that took as its subject the hard to succeed with but most enjoyable when it did time travel plotline. If you were confused by Back to the Future Part II, then this might have expected you to keep up with its twists to the same level, but the way it all fell together had you toasting writer and director Nacho Vigalondo and his ingenuity. If there was a problem, it was what the main character does seems highly illogical even when he's doing it, as if he has become a slave to making sure everything turns out the right way without regard to the legality of his actions.
Hence the name Timecrimes, naturally, but it could be seen as almost a comedy if what was happening was not so close to a horror movie, complete with masked madman roaming around. That figure with the bandages over his face is what Hector sees through his binoculars while relaxing in his deckchair, hidden in the woods that surround his house, and piquing his interest. But that mystery man is quickly forgotten when he catches sight of a woman amidst the trees, who proceeds to take her top off, giving Hector an eyeful that he would like to see more of if it were not for his wife interrupting him.
She is off to the store, and by the time he feels it is safe to continue with his spying, the woman in the trees has gone. For reasons best known to himself, Hector allows his curiosity to get the better of him and goes exploring, and it's this need to know precisely what is going on that gets him into so much trouble. He is his own worst enemy, and not only his own as he gets further in over his head and the concept of time travel enters into the fray as there just so happens to be a laboratory situated nearby, where our director is testing a new machine to send people into the past, although the implications of that are not apparent to Hector when he climbs into it and the scientist presses the button.
If there's anything that Vigalondo is trying to convey here, other than his talent with a convoluted yet still satisfying story, it's that time is so powerful we meddle with it at our cost. No matter what Hector does to undo his mistakes in his bouncing back through the hours (he never goes as far as visiting a previous century or anything budget-taxing like that), it simply serves to make things worse for him and the people he has encountered, so that by the end he is a changed, haunted man. Timecrimes is undoubtedly one of those films where it is better to know as little as possible about it before you watch it, as Vigalondo ties himself in knots to surprise you, but never so much that he cannot extricate himself from his intricate plotting. Add to that performances which never hint at being too knowing, and ignoring any hard to accept behaviour on the part of the characters, you have a little sci-fi gem. Music by Chucky Namanera.
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| Reviewer: |
Graeme Clark
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