Time crimes – Los cronocrimenes (2007)

Directed by: Nacho Vigalondo | 88 minutes | action, thriller, science fiction | Actors: Karra Elejalde, Candela Fernández, Barbara Goenaga, Juan Inciarte, Nacho Vigalondo

Time travel. Always an interesting topic to discuss or to make and watch a film. What is true now? What is right and what is not? Which movie is right? ‘Back to the Future’ (1985) perhaps, or The ‘Terminator’ (1984), the genius ‘Donnie Darko’ (2001) or the more modest ‘Primer’ (2004)? Anyway, all movies struggle with the same problem: you can’t check, but something always seems wrong. Because let’s face it: is it plausible that you can look at yourself, because you have been put a few hours back in time with a time machine? Is that really conceivable?

Still, the vision of debut director Nacho Vigalondo, who also wrote the script, is fun and exciting anyway. With a lot of humor and suspense he has consistently applied ‘the rules’. Keep your head up, yes, but that makes the film all the more interesting. You can determine exactly where the problem is, you may even think everything is right, but it is not really verifiable. This film does not use the exuberant action of other titles such as ‘Back to the Future’ mentioned above. It responds more to the consequences of human actions prompted by weaknesses such as lust, (too great) ambition and selfishness. It seems as if the makers have mainly asked themselves a moral question (hence the title ‘Timecrimes’): what if things go wrong? Who is responsible for that? And can you restore that, can you restore that? Because as many stories show, it is a big mistake to mess with time. That’s like messing up God’s own plan and that’s exactly what happens in this movie.

Karre Elejalde, a fairly well-known actor in Spain, who was only seen in Dutch cinemas in previous films by Julio Medem (including in ‘La ardilla roja’ from 1993, he was that rude neighbor), plays a credible role as somewhat naive forties with a tummy and the arrogant, selfish, but self-evident attitude of modern western man. He dives with his stupid head from one problem to another and walks into all the traps that we see coming miles away retroactively. Especially here the precision in the script is also important and it seems that everything is ‘correct’.

Nacho Vigalondo, who also played ‘the scientist’, a major instigator of evil, makes an intriguing addition to the stock of time travel films with limited financial resources. One that is certainly not inferior to any other. ‘Los Cronocrímenes’ is slightly less exuberant than the big brothers from Hollywood, but at least as intelligently executed, even more exciting than, for example, ‘Primer’ and teaches us an important lesson: don’t mess with time ’cause it will mess with you ( but in Spanish of course).