Since I speak fluent spanish, I can assure you there is no subtitle translation issue with Magnet/Magnolia's new release of Nacho Vigalondo's Timecrimes, as there was with Let the Right One In a couple weeks ago. Frankly, it's one of the best spanish language subtitle translations I've come across. It's not just that it's literally translated well, but contextually, it's dead-on.
As best I can remember it, there are no differences between the DVD subs and the theatrical release, so there's no "better translation" added here, as was alleged on Let the Right One In by a Magnolia rep in a leaked memo on slashfilm.
Director Nacho Vigalondo was nominated for an Oscar for his short film, 7:35 in the Morning (embedded below and included on the DVD), which opened the door to financing for this, his first feature. He had been working on the script on and off for years. When the chance to do a feature came up, he was determined that this was the idea in his stack he wanted to tackle.
The Movie
The movie follows Hector, a settled down, settled-in homebody. One day he goes walking through the woods after catching a topless woman through his binoculars. He's then chased by a man in a pink bandage mask, and travels back through time. That's just the beginning of this complex and rewarding cult classic.
Time travel movies are usually pretty dumb, with not much tension and a lot of stupid gags. The main reason for this is that when dealing with the concept of time travel, you assume that everything will resolve itself in the end. Boy gets girl, becomes rich, saves his family, so on and so forth. Timecrimes inspires doubt just when you think everything is going to be fine.
Vigalondo takes the approach of a scientist to how he structures the plot and strings multiple timelines together. The logic of it all is absolutely flawless, and Nacho's talent with minimalism is really showcased with how big a conceptual story he tells with very few props, locations, and a complete lack of digital effects.
Video & Audio
It was shot on the cheap, so there's some graininess to the transfer, as to be expected on DVD. The audio is clean and crisp. The video and audio are both lossy but upconvert well. There's no Blu-ray edition, which would be the best way to have this title, but that shouldn't dissuade you from purchasing it. I'm presuming they may release a Blu version around the time (when and if) the remake comes out.
Extras
The Making of Timecrimes (45 min.)
There's no V.O. narration or talking heads, just behind the scenes footage from various parts of production, including the morning an nearly-lethal thunderstorm hit the set. This is the first time in a long time I've not been remotely bored with one of these.
Cast and Crew Interviews (10 min.)
Included are chats with Director/Writer/Actor Nacho Vigalondo, his star Karra Elejalde, the topless girl in the forest, Barbara Goenaga, the producer, and finally the Makeup Effects Supervisor, who does excellent work. There's a pre-empting "Backstage" bit where you get some candid behind the scenes moments, and you can choose to Play All or watch them individually. It's only ten minutes, but worth the time.
Makeup Featurette (6 min.)
7:35 de la Manana (7:35 in the morning) (
From my writeup of a screening of his short film work at Fantastic Fest:
This is the 2005 Oscar-nominated short that he is best known for, and he joked that after The Dark Knight, it can be seen as something of an origin story for a supervillain.
Timecrimes Internet Game Featurettes
They put together a viral online game for promotion that looks like it had a bigger budget than the movie. You help a woman who was fired form the company that made the time machine find out why she was fired and what is really going on and then in turn were to help find her.
Photo Gallery
These are basically EPK shots. skip 'em.
Teaser Trailer
This teaser, produced in Spain, makes the movie look like a by the numbers slasher movie. It's a lot smarter than that, but if that's what it takes to trick people into seeing it, fine by me.
Final Thoughts
Timecrimes does everything that the best episodes of The Twilight Zone, Night Gallery, and The Alfred Hitchcock Hour did, and in that spirit, it scares you without waving gore in your face. There was a time when horror and suspense didn't mean wondering what vivisection of a person they were going to show you that you hadn't seen before.
Remake rights have been sold to Sony, and whereas i think the Let the Right One In remake is a weird proposition, I feel they can come up with something interesting and engaging here, especially with Timothy Sexton (Children of Men) on board to write it.
As it stands, Timecrimes is absolutely worth owning, regardless of what Hollywood comes up with. As far as we know, things could end up like Abre Los Ojos and Vanilla Sky, where the remake is flawed but worth watching, critically maligned, and then generally dismissed. If half the low-budget genre movies I saw were nearly this inventive and well-prepared, I'd have seen many, many more good genre flicks.