Tempus fugit

It's a fun and creative movie. Although 'a timetraveller tells a nerd to save the world' sounds like heavy stuff, this movie is rather small. It could easily be played on stage! The use of pills to travel through time is brilliant and it brings us a couple of weird and funny situations. I loved it. But the smallness also makes it easy to forget this film...

I should also mention that this story takes place in Barcelona. Therefor the language is not Spanish but Catalunian (?). And therefor the soccer club Fc Barcelona plays a funny part in it... Before I commit spoiling, I will stop now. Just go see it!

Meet Ramon, a low profile loner in Barcelona, superhero comic strips fan and too shy to approach the nice woman he sees walking the square every day. A small existence lacking any excitement. But then, in the middle of the night, a time traveller appears in his bedroom with a strange message: A small box of medication, Tempus Fugit, can bring you hours or days back or forward in time, and Ramon has a mission. He has to save the world. It sounds quite simple, but things get difficult for Ramon when the box is lost and his football crazy neighbour and his dog get involved. Will Ramon be able to save the world ? Does he still want to after finding out to be the chosen one because he is meaningless ? Tempus Fugit was produced for TV, but has made its way through various european film festivals with great public recognition. Rightfully so, because Enric Folch has made a friendly little movie with good actors, a plot full of little twists and turns and some very funny moments. The whole thing works very well on a big screen, and we can leave the cinema with a smile on our face: Little things can have big consequences and if we dare to change our daily routine and jump over our shadows, we don't need superhero skills to save the world. With a little luck we can even find the love of our life.

Adorable. Charming. Smart. Clever. Funny. Warm-hearted. Quirky. Delightfully tongue-in- cheek. If this movie was made for TV, why isn't American TV this good?

Ramon is a shy guy in Spain, who has a terrible crush on Angie. A time traveler from the future enlists Ramon's help to save the world, and many comical and surprising missteps ensue. As they mess with the timeline, an unintended consequence occurs: Ramon and Angie fall in love. Will Ramon be able to save the world? Will saving the world require a change in the timeline that will erase their new love? Is saving the world really worth the effort if Madrid is going to beat Barcelona in the soccer championship?

If you're ever lucky enough to have a chance, go see this movie!

(Seen at the Port Townsend Film Festival, Port Townsend, Washington, USA, Sept. 2005)

Tempus Fugit is a very human take on the ancient theme of time travel. Despite this seeming lack of originality, the film is anything but clichéd in its execution. It deftly tackles in a refreshing way the story of an apparently ordinary man, chosen to do an important job - or else the world ends. Time travel is at the heart of both story and ultimate solution, yet it is clearly a means, a device, implemented in the story in the most simple of fashions. Most things appear simple at first sight in this movie, which is a nice change from the convolution that characterises so many similar themed films. Paradox is neither explained nor ignored, but treated matter-of-factly - not an obstacle but a given, hardly worth mentioning.

The characters are sympathetic in the extreme, from the main personage to the woman he secretly admires, from his rabid football loving neighbour to the people that occupy the square that is a central location to the film. Even the 'visitor from the future', obnoxious though he seems at first, has a certain charm that makes you want to forgive his crasser statements. The same really goes for the entire film, whose low production values shine through at times but never become distracting: the small flaws that are there are easily ignored in the face of a charming tale, told in such a clearly loving fashion that by the end it'll have put a smile on your face and made you realise that its ending, which out-Hollywoods Hollywood itself, is the only one possible after a story like this. Highly recommended. (Seen at the Amsterdam Festival for Fantastic Films, April 2004 - prefaced by an interview with the director)

Timetravelling, the apocalypse and true love - sounds promising? Well, it isn't. First of all: the concept of time travel is used without any sense in the film, which annoys me, but maybe not everybody will find this disturbing. The movie is full of clichés, normal guy needs to save the world, but is really a hero, love seems doomed, but turns out stronger even than the apocalypse! Hooray. Even bystanders applaud when the two main characters find each other with a passionate kiss that seems to come out of the blue, how original. The time travel clichés are also present: a little change can make events develop totally differently (yeah, yeah, we know that by now). The clumsiness of the main character is too much, too stereotypical, and a mere attempt to imitate other films with similar anti-heroes. The situation in which somebody from the future who never had any alcohol goes totally drunk after one beer is also really-just-not-new. I'm being honest, I like movies, and nothing in this one seems to be original, it's an accumulation of poor copies of concepts that we have encountered in many films before.

So aren't there any good things in this movie? Well, there are, some. Some dialogs (but not many) are quite funny, and the setting in Barcelona is warm and nice, the photography is quite all right though not exceptional. I wouldn't recommend anyone to go and see this movie at all.