Hidden Flick: Another Life, Brother
[Originally Published: February 8, 2011]
We’re honored to have Randy Ray back to kick off the fifth season of Hidden Flick – a column which examines films you might not be familiar with, but certainly need to see.
Many too many have stood where I stand; many more will stand here, too…
Mirrors, like children, don’t lie. Well…that isn’t exactly true, is it? Those filthy little unwashed bastards can yak a yarn from here until doom’s gloom, but yet, you’ll never get them to admit it. Ahhh…but, we’ve driven far afield (or is it flown?), haven’t we? And that is the point, innit? We swoop down amongst the natives, concealing our celluloid chestnuts, and ponder. Oh, to ponder, perchance to dream of another life, brother.
And so we meet again. You dastardly mirror. Look away, will ya. It isn’t nice to stare. Then again…we gawk inside its depth to see not one, not two, but infinite possibilities of who we are, where we are, and, yes, what we are capable of doing in this timeline, or any other for that matter, in the opening of Season Five—gasp, indeed, number 61 in total—as we head into another twisted observation, another Hidden Flick, Los Cronocrímenes.
This 2007 science fiction gem featured numerous points of view, but all were coming from the same central character. Alas, the unfortunate chap leaps down a rabbit hole from whence all strange things come, and shoots into a surreal series of circumstantial events that he has either caused or been impacted by in a weird game of am I the victim or the crime?—inside out, backwards and forwards, and he maneuvers to and fro through time, there and back again, paralleling some sort of alternate temporal universe that neither appears to begin, nor end, but always hobs on its head in a round middle of circular events until he returns home, again, with tragic wisdom and blood on his hands.
READ ON for more on this week’s Hidden Flick…
Written and directed by Nacho Vigalondo, Timecrimes (as the film is known in its English-translated title) also co-stars the director as the inventor of a time machine, which works in a way that one can never quite imagine, encircling and pounding the animalistic fate of a man’s destiny home in a rather unique and fascinating way. The bent beaut stars Karra Elejalde as a soul who will either teach you to never look into the two round holes of binoculars again, or believe in the concepts of a space-time continuum controlled by man’s free will, instead of his inevitable fate.
The path is clear though no eyes can see…the course laid down long before…and so with Gods and men, the sheep remain inside their pen…though many times they’ve seen the way to leave…
What is most striking about this concept is how the man chooses to follow his path; although, he has several opportunities to change his course within the realm of the odd time machine which rests at the center of this rather clever, brilliant, and horrifying tale of man’s survival instincts.
There is only the next step, leading one ever onwards, as the battle between the forces of light and dark, time and space, and the notion that a film, a Cinema Show, has to progress in a linear fashion with images that tell you exactly what is going on are discarded by the God of Time Travelers who can determine WHEN they are, but not WHO they are.
Yeah. Right there. Whoop. An incredible opportunity. A gift. Hey, Rael, supper’s ready.
So…what have we got here, thus far? Mirrors and unwashed bastards and circumstantial events and an alternate temporal universe and tragic wisdom and two round holes of binoculars, and, always, ALWAYS, that clever, brilliant sense of a horrifying tale of man’s survival instincts…
Ahhh…but we get ahead of ourselves, don’t we? There must be some misunderstanding, there must be some mistake…I went to the places…I rang your house…jumped in my car…I went round there…still don’t believe it…he was just leaving…there must be some misunderstanding…
Los Cronocrímenes shimmers ‘neath a silver series of clouds that neither judge or abdicate its hollowed throne, and one is left breathless at the mysterious truth dancing amongst the stars on the outer rim of its sinister credo: we will do what it takes to get by, and we will find a way to move forward, and we will one day look in the mirror, and that blood, that very blood coming from another source, is really all our own. Wandering in the Garden of our Dreams, we hear the Piper, feel the cool bite of the Seven Below, witness the Return, come fumbling back onto the streets—the Lamb heads up Broadway.
To walk away from time or towards time—that is the question…that is the mirror.
Stand up to the blow that fate has struck upon you; make the most of all you still have coming to you, whispers the trees and the clock spins once again…another life, brother.
Awesome movie. Bizarre, overly sexual and a very interesting concept.