SXSWORLD

3 6 S X S W O R L D / M A R C H F I L M - I A 2 0 1 4 n a coincidence so improbable that you suspect some secret behind-the-scenes monkeying with the laws of cause and effect: ere are three separate time- travel films at SXSW this year. Somewhere between a trend and an anomaly, it is telling that even with their shared thematic concerns, the individual films couldn't be any more different. ere's Predestination from direc- tors Peter and Michael Spierig, a dark conspiracy-and-chase thriller that jumps between decades as Ethan Hawke tries to stop a series of crimes before they can occur; e Infinite Man, by writer-director Hugh Sullivan, an off-kilter rom-com in which techie Josh McConville's spurned suitor creates temporal loops in the desire to put things right with his girl- friend, Hannah Marshall; and Premature, a high-school sex comedy about a young man (Craig Roberts) who gets hurled back to the start of a very awkward day to live it all over again ... every time he, uh, achieves a certain joy. It is not rare for indie film to take advantage of the pleasures and possibilities inherent in being able to change the laws of time's flow. Timecrimes launched Nacho Vigalondo's career, and Shane Carruth's Primer was the debut that put him on the map. More recently, Rian Johnson's Looper combined big-star production with twisty, cruel indie- themed turns. Much like the popularity of the zombie film, though, the question for filmmakers is what they do within the wide expanses of what seems like a narrow format. For Sullivan, his deserted seaside town shooting location made for a timeless setting that was perfect for time travel — and time travel worked as the perfect metaphor for e Infinite Man's dry commentary on the way men often want to solve problems before they actually listen to them. "I think Dean (McConville) is the kind of guy who will take what to other people is a simple problem, and over-complicate it," he explains. "And I wanted the structure of the film to reflect the workings of his mind, where something very simple is pulled into strange loops and paradox problems. He's just that type of guy." Co-director and co-writer Peter Spierig had a different idea in mind for Predestination — including a basis in Robert Heinlein's beloved time- travel short story, "All You Zombies." "We're always interested in taking a subgenre people think they know and doing something different," says Spierig. "Certainly, Predestination does that with time travel. It's something that's very different from the usual sort of movie ..." Spierig also recognized that while time travel films may allow charac- ters to pop in and out of the timestream at random, the actors playing them need slightly more of a map: "We actually had a diagram in the production office that helped people understand; the cast, the crew. When you're dealing with time travel, something like say, wardrobe — and keeping track of that through different days and different locations — it does help with diagrams." And those diagrams do matter. As Spierig says, one of the plea- sures of a film like Predestination is being able to craft a film where all the parts matter: "at's what I love about it; as you watch it, it feels like separate stories, and it all comes together; it's one of those films where all the pieces have meaning in the ultimate story, even if it seems we're going off on a tangent." Beers, for his part, sounds like his approach in Premature is more playful -- and so weirdly perfect, considering how high school is where a few second chances might come in handy: "e idea that jumped into my head was a high school kid having to re-live his failed attempts at having sex over and over again until he gets it right. So, Groundhog Day ... with orgasms." Beers stuck with his conceit, even though it may seem a lot less dignified than, say hopping into a DeLorean: "No, not as dignified, and not as nice. With films like Source Code and the upcoming Edge of Tomorrow, we wanted our character to gain control of what was happening early on, so he's able to alter it. I think the twist we put on it is something no one's ever thought of." And so the circle goes — sub-genre becomes tradition, tradition gets upended, and filmmakers are more than willing to see where they can go with their story when their characters can go anywhen. Spierig might have summed up the pitfalls and pleasures of time travel for directors — whether played stab-wound serious or bandanna-peel goofy — with a story of Hawke's first day on-set for Predestination: "I sent him the script the day before anksgiving, and he sent me an email on anksgiving saying 'Tell me where and when and I'm in.' But when he turned up in Australia, he said, 'I'm really excited about this film, but who the hell am I playing?' And that was a complicated story ..." n For SXSW Film screening information, see schedule.sxsw.com. ree Films Explore Time Travel's Pleasures and Possibilites by James Rocchi Predestination B E N K I N G Premature C O U R T E S Y O F F I L M N AT I O N E N T E R TA I N M E N T I

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