Tuesday, May 5, 2009

CHANGES IN THE REPETITION


As one relives a specific day, he may begin to question his own actions. Is he repeating what his former self did or is he doing what his future self will do or even erase? Aaron is aware that everything he does may already have been defined.

Aaron initially theorizes that the machine is just an incubator for fungus. When this point in time is repeated, it becomes a statement from Aaron to potentially keep Abe from finding out that the box is safe for human travel. After this point, it may still be necessary to insure the proper location of the boxes.

"I spent all last night and a two hour lunch break just double-checking everything." Initially true. In the repetition, Aaron has only to pretend he did this work. It now insures Abe will proceed to build the working boxes. It is very similar with Abe's work. When he goes through the initial day to show Aaron, he talks about building a bigger box with panels of mini-fields. Aaron says sure, then adds "How many days would that take?" Yet, Abe already has one. It seems there is no gap to the point where they have two. Did Aaron really build one? Does Aaron only have one that he duplicated through the box, or does he have two of his own, one built with Abe and one duplicated? How many are left, then, at the end of the film?

Insignificant seconds can have a huge impact on events, as can every little sentence in a conversation. This is fully demonstrated in ‘Lola Rannt’ (German) or ‘Run, Lola, Run’. It has some great music too, as does ‘Primer’ (written by Carruth). What could happen if Aaron left something out of the day when repeating it simply because it seemed insignificant? It could throw off other key events. This is another reason to follow the script as closely as possible.