Allusions to French Film Point to a Time Machine

I recently re-watched 1993 box-office hit Les Visiteurs and soon felt extremely glad at this viewing choice because I had forgotten about the scene where a wizard sends the hero, a medieval knight, back in time so he can undo accidentally shooting his prospective dad-in-law in the head. This is remarkably similar to the scene in Pulp Fiction where – under the briefcase-contains-a-time-machine theory – Marsellus erases time to just before Vincent accidentally shoots Marvin in the head (upon which Vincent promptly accidentally again shoots Marvin in the head). That the knight only just manages to divert his crossbow bolt strengthens the sense that the scene is being quoted from. Or there’s how the collapse of the knight’s marriage plans is echoed by the way the only specified consequence of Marvin eating a bullet is Jimmie, the character played by Quentin Tarantino, getting divorced. Keep in mind the dates for the films. Les Visiteurs was released on 27 January 1993. Principal photography for Pulp Fiction began on 20 September 1993.

What gives these allusions their particular force is that they are invisible to viewers until the realisation that Marvin must have been shot in two timelines. They are buried deep and seem especially so for appearing in a foreign-language film. And so when they are recognised it’s like not just a few more pieces of evidence, but as if the time machine theory is being confirmed.

Of course they could still be just coincidences. But the coincidences are piling up. For me there are so many that they have to be seen as clues pointing to how Tarantino wants viewers to, at the least, keep in mind as a shadowy sub-reality the briefcase containing a time machine. One can’t speak with more certainty because Tarantino’s conception is so original that movie grammar is still playing catch up. Surely though the question now has to be, not whether there is a time machine, but how it fits into the scheme of the film.

24 May, 2026