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This wasn’t helped by the fact that the writing was also obtuse.
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In the end, I was barely paying attention because I was mentally exhausted trying to follow what was happening. I have nothing against a good, mind-bending plot, but “Primer” took things too far, deliberately making the plot obtuse and hard to follow. While it sounds like an intriguing premise, I could not for the life of me tell you what the hell happened by the end of that movie. “Primer” is an indie movie about two engineer friends who, in the course of inventing things, accidentally create a means of time travel. Unfortunately, sometimes a storyteller goes too far with that idea. Disjointed chronologies can be very powerful, acting to engage the brains of the audience and make them work for a cohesive narrative. But there is something to be said for a story that jumps around in time, keeping you guessing as to what happens next. Not that there is anything wrong with a linearly ordered plot. In this way, the out-of-order events help us identify with the main character and his plight, creating a unique story experience that would be missed if everything were told in simple, linear order. This is reflected in the main character of the movie, Leonard, who uses a sophisticated series of photos and tattoos to remind himself of where he is going and why. This is an idea expressed in “Memento” where the main character suffers from “anterograde amnesia”, a form of memory loss that occurs after an accident, leaving the sufferer able to recall details before the event but unable to form new long-term memories after. They can also highlight the mental state of a character. But disjointed chronologies have more power than just getting the audience interested. Last time I talked about how the game “Uncharted 2: Among Thieves” used a set piece that occurred later in the story as a means to hook the player at the outset and keep them engaged and interested in what was happening. Often, these pieces are out of order chronologically, and it’s up to you to put together what happened and when. The idea of finding notes is a common one in video games, sometimes replaced by audio or video recordings, telling a narrative in pieces. And as you work your way through the castle, scattered notes help you piece together your past and what, exactly, led you to this place.
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It doesn’t explain why, but insists that this is the only course of action left to you. The note tells you to descend into the depths of the castle and kill a man named Alexander. He then wakes up on the floor of a hallway and the game begins.Īs you wander through the castle, you eventually come across a note written by yourself, revealing that the amnesia was self-inflicted, caused by a drink your character consumed. By the end of the intro, he can barely manage to utter his name. For example, the video game “Amnesia: The Dark Descent” begins with the main character stumbling through the halls of a castle, struggling to maintain his memories of who he is and where he lives. One of the most common disjointed chronologies occurs in stories where the main character has amnesia. Although I’ve never seen the movie, I love the idea of a plot that is told out of order, that is pieced together bit by bit. It starts at the end of the movie, and basically plays things out in reverse order. But what if the end is at the beginning? That’s what “Memento”, a movie by Christopher Nolan, did. That’s how it goes right? Every story has them. So I wanted to expand upon that idea.Ī beginning, middle, and end. I mentioned how I, personally, enjoy stories with disjointed chronologies. Last month I talked about “In Medias Res”, a Latin term meaning roughly “in the middle of” and referring to when a story begins with some action that usually occurs later on in the story.