Clearly I have grasped that film: it makes no sense

Avoided death. But you knew that.

Mostly because I was determined not to let it beat me, I just watched Primer again. The first time I came out of it dazed, largely because it all made perfectly coherent sense until about 20 minutes from the end, then went bonkers.

This time I had basically the same response, but now I think that's about right. The permutations of the storyline are just completely insoluble - you just don't have enough information to know what's happened. You wind up just as confused and weirded out as the lead characters, which is all terribly artistically pure. It'd suck if the film was longer, but it's just the right amount of time spent being completely baffled, and then you're done.

I'm not sure whether being knackered from the 15-k cycle ride, plus slightly intellectually muffled from the beers earlier, prevented me from understanding that film properly, or just put me in the right frame of mind to not bother about the bits that are impossible to solve.