AFI Dallas International Film Festival - ‘Time Crimes’

(Spain, 2007, 90 mins)
In Spanish with English subtitles

Directed By: Nacho Viglondo

Hector sits on a lawn chair outside his country home, surveying the nearby hillside through a pair of binoculars. Catching sight of what appears to be a nude woman amidst the trees, he hikes up to investigate. When he’s attacked by a sinister figure, Hector takes refuge in a laboratory atop the hill, hiding in a peculiar scientific contraption. Moments later, he emerges—only to find that it’s hours earlier. Time has a lot in store for Hector.

Nacho Vigalondo has a great instinct, moving effortlessly between a tense, disquieting atmosphere and a relentless, driving energy. His story of an ordinary man flung into circumstances far beyond his comprehension (and perhaps his control) is propelled by a deeper curiosity than genre antics alone will satisfy. Ever more desperate to decipher the web of cause and effect surrounding him, Hector becomes increasingly complicit in the very situation he’s trying to escape.

Information from the AFI website