The Time Loop Double Feature:
Timecrimes [2007] – 8:30pm
Triangle [2009] – 10:30pm

 
Don’t let the similarities of these posters (both misleading in style and story convention) fool you. Neither of these two films have anything to do with a masked slasher in the woods or a crazed axe murderer on a boat. These characters are simply caught in a paradox that leads them into uncharted waters in which extreme circumstances sometimes, rightfully or wrongfully, call for extreme action.

Even though both pictures have a similar concept and plot structure, they have a stylistic tone all to themselves and wildly differing conclusions. The time loop concept has been done many times and yet I’m amazed at how many creative visions and versions there are of the theory of the time travel paradox. While Timecrimes is a bit more of a straight up time machine mishap, Triangle tackles the more mystifying (purgatorial realm of forever if you will) side of the time pardox and stays much more vague in order to keep the audience guessing about what is actually going on until the final few minutes; thereby having a much more sinister (dare I say haunting) tone. Timecrimes stays on the more scientific (using the term loosely) track of time travel.

So while both of these films build on their main character being stuck in some sort of paradoxical time loop or overlap, whilst coming into contact with various versions of themselves, one is sort of a haunting (and a bit more grisly) mystery while the other gives the audience a little bit more to grasp onto and follow in a procedural sort of way.

These two pictures are equally rewarding for different reasons, but both focus on the idea that “what happened, happened.” One can’t change the past in order to alter the future’s outcome… or can they?

I’ve intentionally left the trailer for both of these films out of this post as one is infuriatingly spoilerific and the other simply gives away a little bit too much. It’s better to go into both of these films as fresh as possible. Join us this week in the RowThree Rep for Timecrimes and Triangle; you’ll want to do it again. and again… and again… and again… and…