How
does a shadowy corporation turn a profit from endlessly sending an abducted
woman back in time to witness her own kidnapping? Apparently, they make it up
on volume. However, the unwilling Andrea will try to break her pernicious time
loop in Olga Osorio’s short film ReStart (trailer here), which screens
during the 2016 Philip K. Dick Film Festival in New York.
Andrea
has deduced the unremarkable and unattached nature of her life is what made her
a perfect time travel guinea pig. Nobody will/has/is miss/ed/ing her. She might
have started out as a mousy Bridget Jones, but she has transformed herself into
an Ellen Ripley. Never knowing when she might be thrown back again, she trains
constantly. She also thoroughly reads the volume on psychics and time travel
theory her captors so thoughtfully provided. She intends to break the cycle,
but that will probably mean more scuffling with her abductors back at that
fateful moment.
There
have been a lot of cool time travel films relatively recently (Timecrimes, 11 A.M., The Infinite Man, I’ll Follow You Down, the forthcoming Synchronicity),
so the stakes have really been raised for several selections at this year’s PKD
Fest. Osorio’s approach to Andrea’s time loop is pretty well thought out, but
the villainous research company makes no sense at all.
Even
evil corporations have evil shareholders. At some point, the evil CEO will have
to explain to them they have been conducting highly unethical experiments that
are super mean and massively expensive that have so far yielded no return and
are unlikely to do so in the foreseeable future. That will make for a really
awkward annual meeting.
