Page - 28 - in JRFM - Journal Religion Film Media, Volume 06/01

Looking for other signs of metaphoricity, we can observe the motif of doors opening and closing: at Aaron’s home, the storage-unit hallway, and the actual time-travel boxes themselves. In particular, the storage hallway of seemingly in- finite doors (fig. 3) housing the boxes is a striking symbol for the multiple timelines occurring within the film, connoting the various possible trajectories and decisions Aaron and Abe are capable of making, generating endless potential second (and third, and fourth) attempts to do the right thing at a specific point in time (although what is morally “right” becomes increasingly opaque). The doors also suggest an infinite number of possible interpretations for this parabolic story – which interpre- tive portal will we enter on this occasion, in this viewing? In moving from text to action – to the world in front of the film – Primer pro- vokes one obvious question: what would you do if you could travel in time? While a plethora of other science fiction stories have explored this query, Primer is unique for its simple-yet-complex parabolic approach, where its very realism reinforces its philosophical and theological questions. The settings are mundane and sparse – a garage, a kitchen, a storage-unit facility, a hotel room – while the time-travel ma- chine is mostly PVC pipe, wires, and duct tape (fig. 2). The American indie aesthetic of the film itself – the handheld cinematography, the 16 mm film, the non-profes- sional or unrecognized actors, the real-life locations, the improvisational-sounding technical dialogue – connotes a cinematic realism. It is this very lack of extravagance which provokes a sense of wonder, as if the most transcendent and miraculous of all human events quietly occurred in a little corner of Texas. The boring engineers must contend with the fact that they have a unique prescient knowledge and the capacity to change events for good or ill; their ability to step outside time ever so briefly allows these ordinary men to begin acting like gods, orchestrating moments in order to fulfill their will. Cultural critic Chuck Klosterman describes Primer as “the finest movie about time travel I’ve ever seen” because of its realistic aesthetic: The reason Primer is the best […] is because it’s the most realistic […] the plau- sibility of Primer is why it’s so memorable. It’s not that the time machine in Prim- er seems more authentic; it’s that the time travelers themselves seem more be- lievable. They talk and act (and think) like the kind of people who might acciden- tally figure out how to move through time, which is why it’s the best depiction we have of the ethical quandaries that would emerge from such a discovery.36 This is precisely the realism of Ricoeurian parables, the extraordinary within the or- dinary, as well as the ethical and theological questions the cinematic parable pro- 36 Klosterman 2009, 63–64. Parabolic Transcendence in Time and Narrative | 27www.jrfm.eu 2020, 6/1, 17–36