Last night, Jen and I watched Primer. Its got the same amateur, black-n-white, intimate cinematography as Pi. I like that. Makes the story feel raw and unpolished – real. Though, unlike Pi, I didn’t feel there was a central hub Primer’s plot spun around. I agree with Kottke;
During the Q & A session at today’s Push the Future Conference, someone cynically asked about the MIT Time Traveler Convention. Push Singh replied with how brilliant an idea it was; first, there only ever needs to be one convention and second, a time traveler could attend and then not attend cause it was lame. Sounds like a win-win for everyone.
The plot in Primer could have been around high school friends going separate ways, a dot com blowing up, or a son reconciling his father’s death, for the interactions between characters and each characters’ transformation were the good parts. Shane Carruth could have started with the plot and simply removed it at some point deciding time travel was lame. Like the Time Traveler Convention, it would have been just as powerful.