Los cronocrímenes

Plot synopsis:
Héctor (Karra Elejalde) is a middle-aged ordinary man who has just moved to a lonely house with his wife Clara (Candela Fernández). They lead a quiet life. He receives a phone call, but the person doesn't say anything. Héctor calls that person back, but nobody answers.Later Héctor is looking through his binoculars; he sees what he believes to be a naked girl in the woods. He decides to go there just to find that same girl (Bárbara Goenaga) lying on a rock. He clumsily falls close to the girl, and he realises she's dead. Suddenly, a man with a pink bandage covering his face stabs Héctor in his arm with some scissors. A chase starts, and Héctor breaks into a house near the forest. There is strange machinery and equations on some blackboards within the house. He talks to somebody in a building nearby, and that person promises to get in touch with him immediately. The other man says that the man with the bandaged face is approaching him. The voice leads him to the other building through a path in the grass illuminated by many lights. Héctor sees more machinery and wonders aloud what all that is for. This is the time machine. Through the window, Héctor can see the car - driven by the man with the bandaged face. He gets into the time machine and travels an hour back in time.The young man in charge of the time machine, El Joven, (Nacho Vigalondo) does not recognise Héctor. The young man explains to Hector (Héctor 2) that he must not interfere with the other Héctor (Héctor 1) so he can go into the time machine again, leaving one Héctor instead of two. Héctor can't help but phone his home, worried that Clara is with "a different man". However, he doesn't dare say anything. El Joven tells Héctor 2 off, but things still happened as they should have. Héctor 2 tries to avoid temptation and not phone his wife again. Héctor 2 leaves with the young man's car and stops when he sees the young lady riding her bike to the village nearby. A van smashes into Héctor 2's car and he uses the bandages on his wounded arm to bandage his now injured face. The bandage stops the bleeding but it turns pink because of the blood. The young lady asks him whether he's all right, and promises to call for an ambulance. Although her mobile phone has got not coverage, Héctor 2 doesn't want her to leave. She is a hairdresser, and puts Héctor 2's bandage right. Héctor 2 steals the girl's scissors, and asks for her help in order to do something. Héctor 2 sees Héctor 1 looking through the binoculars. Then Héctor 2 realizes he has to stab Héctor 1 and chase him to the time machine. The girl runs away and Héctor 2 runs after her. Héctor 2 forces her to repeat the movements which Héctor 1 saw. Héctor 2 sees how Clara caresses Héctor 1, and he rudely demands that the girl takes her trousers off. He chases her, and they both fall down an uneven slope in the wood. The girl appears to be dead. Héctor 2 undresses her completely, and leaves her for dead. Héctor 2 approaches Héctor 1 and stabs him and chases after him, making the movements he saw before.Héctor 2 stops to breathe and calm down, when he hears a scream - a female voice. Héctor 2 returns to his own home where he listens to the telephone, hears strange music and is attacked by somebody who thrusts a wooden table into his face. Héctor 2 takes his wife's car and runs after Héctor 1, following the path of lights.Héctor 2 returns to the time machine and asks the young man to bring him back to the past a few seconds earlier than the last time (becoming Héctor 3). Héctor 3 threatens the young man who finally agrees. This leads to him hitting Héctor 2 with the young man's orange truck, so that Héctor 2 can become the man with the pink bandage and go after Héctor 1.In turn, Héctor 3 suffers a car accident. He sees the young girl and scares her, as she was already running from Héctor 2. Héctor 3 says that he's also running from the man with the bandages. After a short sleep, the girl takes Héctor 3 to his own house, not knowing it's his, as it's the only inhabited place nearby. Héctor 3 says it's not a good idea, but they enter the house. Héctor 3 is left, and the girl leaves. Clara sees Héctor 3's disfigured face. Clara says she's already phoned the police. Héctor 3 tries to hide Clara within a room, trying to avoid her death. He also places the ladder in the right place to enter the house by the top floor's window, while bandaged Héctor 2 is going up the stairs. Héctor 3 throws a wooden table to Héctor 2, who falls down the stairs. Héctor 3 dresses the girl with a red coat and cuts her hair, so that "Héctor 2" would stop considering her attractive. The girl goes out running, and she falls from the roof.The girl dies instead of Héctor's wife, while Héctor 3 has convinced Clara to stay with him. The film ends with Hector 3 and his wife waiting for the police to come. Héctor 2 driving away as the sirens of the police are heard getting closer and closer.

Tags: psychedelic, humor, murder, plot twist, flashback

Review:
It's very hard to review "Los cronocrímenes" without spoiling the fun of watching the movie and seeing how the different stories within the main plot outline keep unraveling ever so intelligently.
He follows his curiosity, and that will be the start of some extremely unusual, mysterious, and intriguing events involving this man, a mysterious stalker with his head wrapped in a pink bandage, a naked girl in the woods, and a young scientist."Los cronocrímenes" is a terrific movie, one that was made with a low budget, a reduced cast, and very few settings.
His actions, along with the main character's, put an unexpected twist in the equation, and fixing things might just be a bit more difficult that anyone ever imagined.What makes the film so spectacular is that everything is the movie is not the result of high tech, computer generated imagery, or dazzling special effects, or an overblown budget.
One of the common issues with time-travel movies is that they are filled with holes in the story, things that you never get to know how happened or why they did happened in the first place.This movie is perfect in that sense, the plot is squared and every small detail has a meaningful reason to exist so in a way is mathematically perfect..
The plot of recent Spanish hit "Time Crimes" is fairly simple:Hector accidentally gets into a time machine and travels back in time nearly an hour.Finding himself will be the first of a series of disasters of unforeseeable consequences.The feature length debut of Nacho Vigalondo is a pretty good science-fiction thriller with a sprinkle of horror thrown in.The time machine looks similarly to the contraptions used in 60's time travel sci-fi flicks.The central performance of Karra Elejalde is excellent and his character is sympathetic and believable.Although many of the twists and turns of the story can be guessed quite early on,they are in some ways all the more enjoyable for that and Vigalondo impressively combines thriller,horror,dark comedy and even slapstick elements without making things feel forced.A little bit of nudity provided by beautiful Barbara Goenaga certainly helps!.
Not a horror film in the truest sense, even if its poster deceives into thinking that it might be one, Timecrimes (also called Los Cronocrímenes) is one of the most intelligent, thoughtful & economical sci-fi thrillers to surface on the silver screen in the past decade or so which doesn't allow the limitations imposed by its modest budget to hinder the vision, potential & creativity of its filmmaker.Set in the Spanish countryside, Timecrimes tells the story of a middle-aged man who, after seeing a young girl undressing in the woods, follows her but is soon attacked by a scissor- wielding man with a pink bandage covering his face.
Fleeing from this mysterious attacker, he breaks into a science facility where an unforeseen incident sets in motion a chain of events that result in some terrible consequences.Written & directed by Nacho Vigalondo, Timecrimes is a cleverly crafted motion picture with a time loop plot that places greater emphasis on its story & characters than other examples of its genre and despite the noticeable absence of visual effects, an undeniable rarity in sci- fi filmmaking, it makes itself work on all levels.
Despite the numerous twists, the story retains its simplicity and unfolds in a smooth manner, music is kept to its minimum and the cast comprises of only four people but all of them deliver convincing performances in their given roles.On an overall scale, Timecrimes is a real surprise for the way it tackles the very complexity of time travel features and makes efficient use of all the available resources to succeed as an exciting, entertaining & wholly satisfying cinema.
Original and ingeniously basic Sci-Fi premise full of suspense and intrigue .This freaky and clever film chronicles fear, suspicion,desperation, paranoia of a person named Hector ( Karra Elejalde) , he is a middle-aged ordinary man who has just moved to a lonely house with his wife Clara (Candela Fernández).
This is without a doubt a thought-provoking and mysterious film to be liked for Science-Fictiona and suspense fans, turning out to be one of the most original Spanish movies of the last years ..
The twists unfold frame by frame and at the end there are some questioned unanswered.You will be engrossed with Hector and his confusion of time travel in order to make the things in place.A must watch mystery packed, illuminating and enthralling movie..
And a few months ago they included a short article about this film with the headline "The new Donnie Darko?" and I instantly read and was gripped and couldn't wait to watch it and to my immense pleasure enjoyed it from beginning to end and can pretty much guarantee if you like the Richard Kelly picture, you will find a similar edge and vibe to this 2007 release.From the chilled opening in the car and at Hector's home things seem pretty straight forward but when Hector sees the young woman in the forest he is instantly intrigued and from there on in there are delicate fine details, extraordinary circumstances and a flare of dialogue that never feels exaggerated or repetitive.When we first see the masked person the film feels exceptionally sharp and edgy, turning from curiosity into full on panic as we dive into Hector's shoes as he quickly looks for ways to survive.
I can honestly say I have never seen a film with so few actors which is fantastic to encode such a heavily twisting informative and scientific plot around.Elejadle playing Hector is perfectly scared and acting in bizarre and normal ways given the circumstances of his predicament whilst Nacho Vigalondo (acting and directing) uses his character's position as the catalyst for all problems and solutions that have delicious twists and turns.His direction serves up a nice slice of fast and furious action montages with carefully mounted surprise quick takes that succumb to many plot movements, particularly the scissors and the use of the time machine.So the big question how does it compare to arguably one of the greatest time twister puzzlements of all time?
Throw in a naked chick, a mysterious bandaged stranger, a somewhat industrial-looking time machine and you should have all the makings of decent time travel movie.A chance sighting through a pair of binoculars of a naked woman by our protagonist Héctor, sets into motion time loops that soon become apparent to him (and us, the viewer at the same time).
The idea alone (although been done before) did keep me entertained but around half way through you can literally reel off everything that is going to happen for the rest of the film (apart from the slight twist at the end)But there were too many unanswered questions for my liking, leaving slight holes in the story so your imagination can fill in the blanks is a great way to keep you thinking about the film afterwards!
It holds your interest well right from the start and keeps you hooked on just a little more curiosity even though the plot feels like you have figured it out by 3/4th way of the movie.An exam for fine art of film making with simple techniques..
This is an interesting and thought-provoking Spanish film which has a grotesque, almost experimental touch and an engaging plot about time-traveling, a theme which had been explored by many other directors and screenwriters.
Timecrimes, is one of the best time travel movies of the 21st century, not only it makes us feel good when we're watching but it hooks us up every second of the film.
The typical themes and aesthetics of time travel stories are nowhere to be found in "Timecrimes," which instead focuses on a middle-aged man who essentially stumbles into a time machine and ends up going about an hour back in time, where he must "cover his tracks" and make deliberate choices to ensure his survival.The story plays out as a mind-bending mystery with crime thriller undertones, something reminiscent of Christopher Nolan's style only with the budget of his earliest work (and way more of a sense of humor).
A good comparison point for fans of time travel films is the simple, rudimentary production of Shane Carruth's 2004 film "Primer" (minus the esoterica) with the sense of stakes and excitement of "Back to the Future." It evokes the qualities of thinker films in its philosophy and adventure-oriented movies in its linear storytelling that doesn't stray from Hector.Vigalondo, who plays a supporting role as the time machine inventor who seems a bit puny and spineless, ultimately wants to use time travel to unearth the motivations of his main character.
That was disappointing.Also, since there are basically four people in the entire movie, if feels like a play, with the revelatory twists that someone expects from an episode of Outer Limits, not from a full feature film.Bottom line: interesting, low budget, way too long for its content.
Using only four characters, the film weaves a story about how Hector (Karra Elejalde) tries to get himself and others out of trouble by using an elaborate system of time travel.
I love many time-travel movies, and this one seems very clever and tightly plotted at first, especially while you are watching it and figuring out how all the pieces of the puzzle fit together very nicely.
Most have total disregard for the actual science involved and through physics out the window.Usually, the stories end up leaving nothing but unaccounted for "loops in time" or ignore the paradoxes they create - not this film."Timecrimes" explores the probabilities as well as the negatives of time travel.
The writer actually made a lot of sense about the development of events in a time travel situation.Get the DVD and don't forget to watch (after the main feature) the chronological version of the film on the extras menu.
I'm a bit of a sucker for time-loop plot lines and half the fun for me is trying to remember events as they first took place before they repeat themselves later from a different perspective, but this particular movie had even me scratching my head as the seemingly infinite possibilities of the future play themselves out.Here, an ordinary middle-aged guy gets stuck in a moment he can't get out of when a bit of accidental voyeurism soon inveigles him in a nightmare race for his life / lives as he meets himself going backwards and forwards courtesy of a conveniently adjacent time- machine and its off-duty operator.
The movie plays like a waking dream/nightmare which might explain the unnatural, almost surreal actions of Hector and to a lesser extent the pretty young girl cyclist and odd-ball scientist with whom his path(s) cross and the odd little details (a new table, a pair of scissors, a recurring Blondie song) that the director inserts along the way.The overall effect is unsettling but intriguing and there's a clever final twist, where Hector ingeniously but cruelly upsets the paradox but I found his remorselessly selfish progress somewhat unsavoury, particularly towards his innocent young victim, although no doubt the divergence into slasher-movie territory was meant ironically too.An off-beat, low-budget movie then and an odd (that word again!) mixture of genres which in the final summary perhaps confuses more than it entertains and could have been improved by making the viewer identify more with the main character instead of presenting him as the stomping, murderous, selfish brute he becomes..
I'm a sucker for all time travel movies, but nearly all of them have a plot hole somewhere; it might not be obvious while watching, but usually a little thought afterwards will throw up something that just doesn't add up.
Some may say that the flaw here is the fact that there is no real starting point to this twisting thriller but I'm not so sure that that is a plot hole so much as a deliberate paradox which is in keeping with the way the film relentlessly teases the audience.The film begins with Hector (Karra Elajalde), a somewhat hapless everyman, spying a naked woman in the woods beyond his and wife Clara's new house.
Timecrimes follows the popular time-travel trope of inevitability, yet I didn't feel anything in the story was really inevitable; it was just Hector being stupid.The movie works better as existentialist drama, highlighting the ways we play out roles and conspire in our own destruction.
Worth at least 7.5Very good simple time travel movie, easier to watch and understand then Primer, less intellectual.This movie hold itself better then Colossal in the script, direction, logic and acting in my opinion.Best time travel story I seen possibly.Try to see it in Spanish with subtitles..
While everybody who likes time travel stories with a touch of reality has to watch this, I'd still recommend it to everybody who doesn't need CGI and special effects to be drawn into the action.
Even in the Butterfly effect, after two or three travels, he was a master in quantum physics." I think he's being a little harsh in his critique' Hector (1/2/3) is not an idiot, but he's no psychopath, either.The key scene of this movie is when the technician (did we ever get his name?) tells Hector after he made the phone call to his house (here, Hector2 was confused and not quite buying-in to the technician's spiel, so he called his house and was surprised to learn that HE was the one who had called himself earlier in the day!), The technician says: "Here's the deal If you alter events any more, and prevent Hector(1) from getting in the container It will be the END of your LIFE as you know it!
Never tedious, Timecrime manages to make a new impression on time travel, whilst also giving us a reason to want to re watch the film to find anything you may have missed.
It never becomes boring, though the characters decision making (like in most time travel films) is questionable at best.
Going to further investigate once his wife leaves, he finds himself embroiled in a mysterious chain of events involving a masked stranger, the space-time continuum, and a strange research facility...The premise of Los Cronocrímenes appeared to suggest a run-of-the-mill B-movie sci-fi film, not something with which I have a problem, but nor something which I feel entirely drawn toward over others.
His only refuge is in a time travel pool (hot tub time machine?), which sets off a series of bizarre events.This film is set in three stages: the horror stage (with some truly tense and creepy imagery), the revelation stage (where the audience thinks they know what's happening) and the third act, where it all plays out -- probably not in the manner expected.
Nacho Vigalondo's time-travel movie is mostly about the well known elements,and circles of the time-travel genre.But against this it was a good drama.The dialogs are not cover enough the problem,the logical part of the screenplay is used,but this is not irritating fortunately.On the other side the acting is help a lot,that was great,that help the whole material.While this film was better than average for me,it's just leaves a big space in the viewer,maybe cause the audience waited something special after it's film festival nominations,and awards.The story is focused to the three main characters,this is a good thing,but for me it was too slow,and the best parts are mostly used with some exceptions.The director needs to learn the military style of the work,cause the movie takes more than add sometimes,but is not every time.Script is too similar to others.Finally recommend this film ,but note:you may seen this elements before,if you can ignore this fact,just give this a chance.5/10-Awards:6-wins,3-nominations,but awards here,or awards there I'am not really impressed at all,maybe creators has trust in the viewer,but that does not mean you have the same taste..
Timecrimes is too important for our time to be any less than careful in describing its content: A sci-fi movie with zero special effects, a cast of no more than four and a single natural location, it cites the brand of intelligent, imaginative film-making that upholds brains over spectacle..
Needless to say, the film is about an hour and a half long, but you become so engrossed in it that it seems like it takes 30 minutes to watch.The basic idea is a man gets lured into a time travel machine which leads to chaos, humor, and a thrilling chase.
However, even though it may be predictable it still managed to keep me interested; and they did a decent job of keeping the movie humorous whilst still giving the feeling of it being a horror film(though, it really isn't one).The logic is very flawed at some points of the movie, and it makes you wonder how the main character (Hector) is so oblivious to what is happening.I wouldn't particularly recommend this movie to anyone; but if you watch it without taking it too seriously, you just might enjoy it..
Time travel movies are hard to get right, but they usually make for very entertaining films you can't take your eyes off, and "Timecrimes" is no exception.A guy is chilling in his backyard when he suddenly sees some girl take her clothes off with his binoculars, he then follows her and after a series of disastrous events ends up getting into a time machine trying to fix things he did wrong.Does going back to our past make anything better?
If you enjoyed time travel films like 'Twelve Monkeys' or 'Primer', you will definitely find 'Timecrimes' to be an excellent watch!.
This is definitely not a top class movie but it's above average.Some of the scenes(plot) were predictable but you have to expect that from a time-travel film.Watch it you won't regret it.8/10.
I love movies that have time-travel and I have seen quite a few of them.Story is really good and so is the execution, without falling into too many clichés.
I love films where you constantly have to re-evaluate your views of situations and characters (e.g. Irreversible) and Time Crimes is a perfect example of a movie which makes you re-think your views as the story progresses.