Real Time

"Tiempo Real" (Real Time) was made in 2002 by Mexican filmmaker Fabrizio Prada, son of Bolivian writer Renato Prada Oropeza, who currently lives and works in México and helped his son script this movie. The story unfolds in a single shot of digital camera, moving through different locations in the city of Jalapa, Veracruz, and portraying several events. These events are triggered when the employee of a valuable transportation service and his accomplices decide to take off with the money he was assigned to deliver that day. From that point on, those who took part in the heist start dying as each one of them wants to keep the whole loot for his/herself.

This is not the first time someone attempts to shoot a feature film on a single take. "The Russian Ark," made a couple of years earlier, follows the same procedure. Nevertheless, the purposes to which each filmmaker applied this technique differ substantially. The makers of "The Russian Ark" attempt to present the history of Russia from a panoramic angle, in which the events come together as part of a single picture. Prada employs such method to present the dramatic elements of narrative film-making without having to use editing for the story to flow naturally, depicting each character's point of view by the same token. "The Russian Ark" would be best compared with a painting, substituting dialog and individual characters for a collective entity, the people of Russia. Music and the art department set the mood and tone for each passage. Prada's premise closely follows the same model as Quentin Tarantino's "Reservoir Dogs," which in turn bears essential similarities with such movies as Mario Bava's "Chain Reaction" (1970) and "Rabid Dogs" (1974), for example. In these films all family, sentimental or fraternity bonds among the characters are over weighed by ambition, which leads to the use of each other for their individual goal of attaining wealth.

Prada's seems to invert the patterns and settings of Tarantino's story on purpose. "Reservoir Dogs" takes place in a single location for the most part, while Prada moves around the city as much as he can. The spectator identifies in Mr. White (Harvey Keitel) and Mr. Orange (Tim Roth) the characters with the highest stakes arisen after the "revelation," traditionally prescribed in drama. In Prada's film the characters that would have had the most dramatic weight are the ones eliminated first, leading to constant surprise as each one of the killers makes his/her move. Their motivations are not revealed until then. With Tarantino, we discover who the protagonists are little by little, while with Prada each character is given just enough time to present himself/herself, briefly outline his motivations, and kill or die in descending order. They die according to whoever the viewer thinks is the most relevant. In its attempt to present the development of a story in the fashion which the title suggests, it turns away from referencing the past, which in Tarantino's movie, for example, was constantly glanced at through flashbacks, somewhat telling the story in reverse order. Prada sees in referencing the past the main obstacle to present a story in the time frame in which it would naturally take place. If he had made such references for the sake of character development, he would have had to edit and defeat the main purpose of his experiment. Given the number of characters and their distinct motivations, the action moves along at a vertiginous pace.

This is where "Real Time's" main weakness may be. It's difficult to think that so many characters would do so much in such a brief period of time. They not only betray and kill each other while they move through nine or so different locations. They also drink together, have sex, family arguments, receive the visit of religious ministers, etc… One would think is highly improbable that so much action could take place in so little time. Thus, in avoiding the past, Prada accelerates the flow of the story, compromising credibility. Apart from this, the group's behavior pattern becomes obvious after a while. As each member is eliminated, it's only logical not to thrust anyone, and maybe more plausible to end the story sooner than when it actually does. To some viewers, so much action would require some sort of background for better digestion, and this may have meant to go back in time through editing.