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Review: Timecrimes

Bumbling farce gives way to existential horror
By PETER KEOUGH  |  January 20, 2009
3.5 3.5 Stars


VIDEO: The trailer for Timecrimes

It all started with a simple act of voyeurism. Or did it? Poor Héctor (Karra Elejalde) is sitting in his back yard when he spots a woman (Bárbara Goenaga) taking off her top. He goes to investigate; before he knows it, he has a body on his hands and is being chased by a stranger whose face is covered with bloody bandages. How will he ever explain this to his wife (Candela Fernández)?

And isn't that himself with a pair of binoculars chatting with her on the lawn? These are just a few of the problems involved with getting transported two hours into the future, and in LosCronocrímenes, first-time director Nacho Vigalondo makes a virtue of minimal production values as he pursues, with austere, Buñuelesque black comedy, the paradoxes of time-travel.

Bumbling farce gives way to existential horror as the deeper implications of the process reveal truths about desire, identity, fate, and death that make Héctor a man wise before his time.

Related: Review: Friday the 13th (2009), Review: The Haunting in Connecticut, Review: Drag Me To Hell, More more >
  Topics: Reviews , Poor Hector, time travel, Horror
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ARTICLES BY PETER KEOUGH
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    Nicolas Cage is at his best in Bad Lieutenant

 See all articles by: PETER KEOUGH

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