Upstream Color (2013)

Upstream Color begins as a puzzling but reasonably coherent movie; much of the beginning is a disturbing and unpleasant but somewhat interesting sequence in which a woman is kidnapped and kind of hypnotized. While some of it doesn't make much sense, I could think of explanations for why things happen they way they do, and the odd, distanced, no-affect acting is appropriate to what is going on.

Unfortunately distanced characters and no-affect speaking are the rule even after that scene, and puzzling goes to flat out senseless as the movie progresses.

The movie is very much a pretentious art film in which the viewer is supposed to do the work of filling in the gaps of the movie. It is full of strange transitions, inter-cutting between scenes that seem to have nothing to do with one another or between different versions of the same thing. The movie is for people who feel things like story and character development are simple catering to the masses. It is the sort of movie that, if you hate it, you think the people who like it may just be pretending to like it to seem cool, because it is so hard to imagine anyone could genuinely enjoy this. It is a movie that resolutely makes less and less sense as it goes along, so while early on I still thought the elements might somehow be at least vaguely tied together, by the end it appeared that the director himself probably didn't even know how it all connected.

This is not to say there are no interesting ideas in the film, because there are a couple. In fact, you could take parts of this movie and make something vaguely interesting out of them. But this movie fails to use its ideas to good effect. It also never connects you to its characters, leaving you alienated and alone in a confused landscape.

While the movie looks like a puzzle to be solved, I think it is like the famous riddle from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, "Why is a raven like a writing desk," in which when she admits she cannot solve it she is told there is no answer. There is no answer to this movie either, although someone may eventually cobble one together, in the same way that, years later, someone answered the Raven riddle (because Poe wrote on both).

The frustrating thing is, I can't stop mulling over what it means, and yes, I am thinking of connections and possibilities. But these connections do not themselves connect. You can make some of this make sense, at least in terms of allegory, but there are always loose ends, like leftover screws in Ikea furniture. And while fans of this movie will watch it over and over, looking for clues, I would never put myself through this again, because the movie is quite boring and just plain tiring to sit through.

In looking at reviews, trying to figure out why critics love this movie, I found comments that it was brilliantly and beautifully filmed. I don't understand that reaction. From the first moment I thought it was a flat- looking, low budget movie. Competently filmed within its limitations, certainly, but that's about it.

I have a friend who will only watch indie films, and after she rejected my first three choices, we settled on this. She soon apologized for rejecting my choices (she kept complaining and apologizing, in fact, until someone in the theater told her to shut up) and promised that next time I could choose the movie.

Fmovies: Where to begin? Well, it's very possible that Upstream Colour has a very interesting premise. I can't really confirm this though because quite frankly this is one incomprehensible movie. It starts out fairly intriguing to be fair, with a woman abducted by a man who implants a modified maggot into her. This leaves her in some way under his control and he proceeds to get her to give all of her money to him. Another man pitches up and transfers her internal maggot into a pig. It appears that he has a group of pigs that are all connected to different people who have suffered a similar fate. Anyway, the girl has no memory of her ordeal and soon she meets a man who it turns out was also a victim of the same ordeal. It's at this point that the film goes rapidly downhill.

Upstream Colour is one of those movies where things are certainly not spelled out to the audience. This in itself is not a criticism; it's often laudable in actual fact. But equally this in and of itself is does not necessarily mean a film should be praised. This movie lost me mainly because of the alienating presentation, it was impossible to empathise with the characters and the constant ambient soundtrack humming in the background only added to the detachment. The tone of the movie is more or less a flat line – beyond the interesting opening the story hums along in a one pitch manner. The dialogue scenes between the two central protagonists are very unengaging, bordering on tedious. Visually there were things of interest and its ambiguity was compelling to an extent but overall this one left me very cold.

As you all know, with PRIMER, Shane Carruth announced himself to the world as a naturally gifted talent, one who could rival the likes of James Cameron. Of course, it never happened as he struggled to get his second film off the ground.

Nine years after PRIMER Shane Carruth's long awaited second film is as dense as expected, with an impossible to understand third act that still manages to intrigue due to its sheer technical mastery. With UPSTREAM COLOR Carruth proves he is not a one-shot wonder. He also proves he is the ultimate NYC and L.A. art-film director incapable of adapting to more mainstream story telling.

Much has been written about the plot so I will not get into the specifics here. What I will say is that I think Carruth purposely holds critical information from his films as a way to challenge viewers and force them to think. This is admirable. But in the end, a bit frustrating because with just a few answers both PRIMER and now UPSTREAM COLOR would be fit for the masses without compromising artistic integrity.

The film made sense to me for about an hour and then it started to slip away. Like with Primer, I just lost my footing and could not gain hold. Amazingly enough, I still enjoyed the experience and was never bored, In fact, at times I was held in genuine suspense.

The third act has been described as 30 minutes without dialog and that simply is not true. There are numerous sequences without dialog and about halfway through we get a major sequence of events told with visuals and music. Then we have some more conventional filmmaking (conventional is really not the right word) followed by what I think might be around 15 minutes of dialog free visuals. The ending makes no sense to me, but I will see the film again and hope to sort it out.

Carruth designed the sound and composed the music and let me tell you, he hit both out of the park. The man could work scoring films and make a great living. The same goes for his sound design.

I watched the film at IFC in New York City and they have a pretty good sound system. What they don't have is a great screen. It might be the proper widescreen aspect ratio, but the images appeared darker in sections and that harmed Carruth's amazing visuals, rumored to have been captured with a hacked $700 Pansonic DSLR (the GH2). The image is akin to a RED or Alexa and throughout Carruth plays with shallow depths of field. This results in some shots missing the sharply focused mark, but for the most part the visuals shine. This film proves you do not need Hollywood style lighting and equipment to make Hollywood level films.

The Blu-Ray will be out in May and I have already put it on order at Amazon. There is no question in my mind that by year's end I will have sat through UPSTREAM COLOR numerous times.

I look forward to Carruth's next film, but with the hope for a little more clarity in his narrative.

Upstream Color fmovies. I attended this film solo (only one other person in the theater) which turned out to be a good thing as distractions were nil. Carruth has a lot of respect for the viewer. He doesn't do exposition. And if you pay close attention to this film, you wont need it. Unlike other reviews I've seen, I found Primer much harder to suss out than Upstream Color. There was a clear narrative here and the main protagonists arc is clear to see. I loved it. It was intense, beautifully shot, scored, and of course acted, especially by Amy Seimetz, the lead. She was amazing. If you like your films delivered to you on a silver platter, then this is not for you. But if you like to think a little bit, you will find the 90+ minutes of Upstream Color thoroughly enjoyable. I hope it does very well. And I hope Carruth doesn't take another 8 yrs to do his next one.

After this movie ended, I was dumbstruck. I sat looking at the end credits, searching through what I had just watched, remembering the film vividly, and yet having it still be a blur.

Upstream Color is not a literal movie. The plot is never explained directly to the viewer, and the actions taken by the characters are unclear in reason and motivation. The most obvious things I could say about the movie are that it is filmed very well, and it has a nice musical score.

But the movie is not about literal plot. It's not about literal characters. It's about feelings and thoughts. It's a movie about broken people trying to fix themselves. There are things everybody in the movie will understand, and there are things nobody will.

It's a lot like music. When you put on music, you know the mood, and you know the melody, and you know the tempo and the harmony, and it can be a beautiful experience, even though you have no idea what the lyrics mean. And upstream color is a lovely, almost meditative movie about the lives of everyone being interconnected, and about how when people form companionship they start to become one, and yet someone else may say totally opposite things than I'm saying, and they wouldn't be wrong.

It's not a movie for people that think a film must have a literal story. It's not a movie for people who won't watch an hour and a half of meditation. It's not for people who see movies to see stories. And there is no shame in disliking this movie. But if you can appreciate an abstract story and can sit through an hour and a half of meditation, this is the movie for you.

Stanley Kubrick said in his later years: "A film is - or should be - more like music than like fiction. It should be a progression of moods and feelings. The theme, what's behind the emotion, the meaning, all that comes later." If Stanley Kubrick were alive today, I think he would have liked this movie a lot.

UPSTREAM COLOR is already baffling the hell out of the world and will especially draw disapproval on IMDb.

The plot is not delivered in a way that is traditionally comprehensible, only to those paying close attention to the themes that unite it all. If you're already rolling your eyes THIS MOVIE IS NOT FOR YOU.

If however you have experienced or would like to experience films where you have to dedicate your ability to assess and determine the underlying idea that is linking a series of enigmatic actions and subtle scenes, UPSTREAM COLOR will intrigue and probably charm you. It very much plays to the TREE OF LIFE crowd.

For me, it's undoubtedly a massive artistic accomplishment. Hugely evocative and if you unearth those ideas, the ability to have human connection, abuse, hope and language among them, you'll have no problem following along and the ending will be very satisfying.

If you want to say "you're not supposed to understand it, just feel it" that's fine. I think that if you stop and ask yourself what idea is driving moments, you can follow along just fine. The story is in the themes. Details are abstract to drive home this point.

I took off two stars because I found the serious tone and sombre score to be so focused and constant, the atmospherics became a little more monotonous than I think was intended. The briefest of levity here and there might have offset the heaviness.

If you're still reading, check it out.