Upstream Color (Shane Carruth)

[transmogrifier]

I'm not sure what to make of this. It's either some crazy/brilliant film about the tyranny of narrative in motion pictures (among other things) or one of the most incoherent American narrative(?) films since Dennis Hopper's The Last Movie.

If it gets anywhere near The Last Movie, I'll be a happy camper.

[Ivan Drago]

I just watched Primer for the first time. As excited as I am for this, I'm not expecting to understand it the first time I see it.

[Stay Puft]

Freakin' loved this.

My favorite segment was the pig farm. That's when the editing was at its most rhythmic, and that combined with the sound design (the texture and repetition of The Sampler's recordings, Carruth's score) and plot developments (no spoilers) made for what I felt was the most aesthetically accomplished and bewitching segment of the film.

If this doesn't win Best Sound at the Matchies next year, it'll be a bloody crime.

I've got some of the answers to his questions written down but I'll hang onto them until more people have seen the film.

Drop 'em in spoiler text or something. I'd love to read them. There was a Q&A screening with Carruth here that I missed because I didn't even know about it until tickets were sold out. Majorly bummed about that.

[Pop Trash]

If this doesn't win Best Sound at the Matchies next year, it'll be a bloody crime.

Eh. I liked the sound in Spring Breakers more. Just because a film literally has a sound designer as a character doesn't necessarily mean it has the best sound around (but the sound was good don't get me wrong).

[ledfloyd]

I feel like the narrative arc of this is pretty easy to piece together, if many of the details are elusive. I don't think what exactly is going on with the pigs and the worms is so much the point as the catharsis Jeff and Kris find in one another and the emotions they feel. This is pretty major. It's flawed but flawed in the same spectacular way as the other two "great" films I've seen this year (Spring Breakers and To the Wonder). The parts that don't work just highlight those that do and serve to further ingrain the film in your mind.

[Stay Puft]

Just because a film literally has a sound designer as a character doesn't necessarily mean it has the best sound around

I saw Nobody Walks. Your point couldn't be more appreciated.

[ledfloyd]

I'm not entirely sure what the field recording sequence had to do with anything, but its effect (especially when it started cutting Kris and Jeff in) was transcendent. Perhaps my favorite part of the film.

[KK2.0]

I'm eager to watch this, some of the stuff you guys commented regarding lack of dialogue and almost musical approach to editing reminded me of Gyorgy Palfi's Hukkle, anyone watched it? It's a film i've discovered because of this message board and loved it.

[max314]

As a massive fan of Primer, Upstream Color was one of my two most anticipated films of the year, which is why it hurts so much that I didn't like it nearly as much as I wanted to.

I have no problem with obscure or abstract storytelling; Tree of Life, to which Upstream Color has been compared, is a personal favourite of mine. But there is a difference between being tonal or poetic, and obfuscating to the point of complete opacity.

The premise of a parasitic organism able to facilitate mind control is interesting enough, and the desire to explore man's connectedness with nature is a fine ambition, but there are basic narrative requirements that need to be met in order for an audience to engage sufficiently. Tree of Life, for example, lets you know that it's about a man dealing with his complex relationship with his family by way of love, loss and God. Carruth's own Primer establishes a brotherly bond that is put under strain when a power struggle enter their relationship in the form of a supernatural plot element.

But what of Upstream Color? What emotional anchors do we have to maximise the potential of its mind control plot device and its thematic intent pertaining to man and nature? The first act is engaging enough as Kris, our protagonist, falls victim to a criminal's attempts to control her mind and steal her money. And the second act goes some way to establishing a genuinely charming relationship between Kris and Jeff. But then what? What impact has the mind control had on her life? What impact does it continue to have? I enjoyed many of the dreamlike montage sections as individual pieces, isolated from the surrounding story; but as an integrated, singular piece, I just couldn't get behind Upstream Color. If anything, I felt as though Carruth didn't feel confident that he had enough genuinely interesting material to let us just experience it, and thus opted to manipulate it to a point so far offshore that there is no point of reference to judge whether it's 'good' and 'bad'. For someone who's had an immense amount of respect for Carruth's methods as exhibited in Primer, that's hard to admit.

Will my opinion change as I continue to ruminate on what I saw, as I get bombarded with reasons why I'm wrong, as I re-watch the film multiple times? I honestly hope so.

As of right now, however, I don't much care for Upstream Color. And that makes me very, very sad indeed.

[ledfloyd]

The first act is engaging enough as Kris, our protagonist, falls victim to a criminal's attempts to control her mind and steal her money. And the second act goes some way to establishing a genuinely charming relationship between Kris and Jeff. But then what? What impact has the mind control had on her life? What impact does it continue to have?

Well, among other things, the mind control (i.e. the pigs) was responsible for the relationship that developed between Kris and Jeff. The scars that were left influenced everything else that happened in the film.

[Ivan Drago]

I felt the same way about To The Wonder, Max.

This comes to my area Friday, but I'm busy all weekend so I'll be seeing it sometime next week!

[number8]

I do think that the film is ultimately working against itself. There are two great films in here, but they're only marginally related to one another, and almost only by Carruth willfully forcing them to, that they end up preventing each other from greatness. There's a very interesting representation of a triptych (conveniently mirrored by a 3-act narrative) with the worms' circle of life, but by presenting it through the filter of romance I think takes away from its universal scope, since we're too busy trying to figure out how they relate directly to Kris and Jeff, as I spent the whole movie puzzling over. On the other hand, Kris and Jeff's experiences contain a pretty fascinating exploration of individual identity and the development of symbiosis in a coupling, and how affected they are by outside forces (wisely decided by Carruth to be metaphorically elemental, rather than extraterrestrial or supernatural), but such a commentary really needs to be complimented by a deeper connection with the audience, and I wasn't able to do that because I was too busy figuring out the missing pieces of what Carruth left out in terms of how these two and their roles (as embezzler and cancer survivor) relate to the thief and the sampler. Ultimately, I think it would've been a much better film if Carruth had chosen only one of those two stories to handle with his vague, wordless staccato style (reminds me of Grant Morrison comics, strangely enough). Still like it a lot, though, albeit from a distance.

[plain]

Probably should have watched it twice before actually writing about it, but went ahead: http://serenecinema.wordpress.com/20...pstream-color/

[dreamdead]

Really found this fascinating in its study of fleeting and amorphous character vignettes. The last act, where elements begin to be pieced together and all with just music and images, is where the film really sold me. The first hour felt like we were utterly un-anchored, in a way that felt antithetical rather than complementary, but the last 15 minutes or so are pure sensory beauty.

Trying to discern larger commentaries on the film at this point. A false god (the recorder) who redesigns flawed humans who must tear down his designs in themselves and thus rediscover their full potential? It's a little hazy and ephemeral in its larger context, which might be its biggest weakness.

[Ivan Drago]

This movie is so hypnotic. I have to watch it again.

[dreamdead]

An interesting essay on the film.

[Yxklyx]

I can't wait to see this now. I thought Primer would be his only film so surprised to see something new from him.

[EyesWideOpen]

An interesting essay on the film.

That was great. I didn't care much for Primer but I absolutely adored this film.

[number8]

This is now on Netflix.

[Dead & Messed Up]

This is now on Netflix.

And it is now stuck in my head.

I need to rewatch this to get a better grip on how I feel about it, because I'm not terribly sure where I'm at, but quickly, I felt its final twenty minutes worked most effectively and hauntingly, and I was surprised to see Carruth go from a film so meticulous and mechanistic in its construction (Primer) to this one, which feels soft and impressionistic and free-associative. One commonality with both films is watching people try to re-identify after a mundane scientific device upends their expectations of self. In Primer, I was watching two people try to negotiate unchecked power. Here, two people try to negotiate unchecked love, or maybe just connection, which is more fundamental and primal. Maybe this is what Heinlein was getting at when he invented the word "grok."

[Dillard]

Marvelous sound design. But. Increasingly inane plot (it's best act is the first with the Thief) made worse by the perversely elliptical, badly acted (especially Carruth), and self-serious scenes between our two hapless lovers. I don’t sense any chemistry between these two. The worst moment came when she’s repetitively picking up rocks from the bottom of the pool and placing them on the side of the pool along with a few words of prose, and they’re piecing together that she’s got Thoreau’s Walden in her head. So what? It's a scramble at the end to pull the narrative back out of its black hole of obtuseness (at least there's a pleasing, gooey wash of electronica sounds and over-exposed pretty images, right?). No thanks. Whenever Shane Carruth is in the scene, it turns into an extended clothing commercial for banana republic or whatever brand he’s wearing. His entrance shot is absolutely laughable.

[Grouchy]

I thought this was terrible. I was interested throughout the first act because I took it as a mystery which, even if it wasn't completely solved by the end, would prove compelling to watch.

After an hour I was just used to the film just throwing random and boring shit on top of everything and trying to see if it fits. I also didn't care for the style. It seemed to me that it was shot very blandly and that it made a bad use of widescreen composition on almost every other shot. Shane Carruth also should never act. I hated his performance with a fiery passion.

Hated, hated, hated this. I would only consider watching Primer now based on your affirmations that it has nothing to do with this.

[eternity]

I thought this was terrible. I was interested throughout the first act because I took it as a mystery which, even if it wasn't completely solved by the end, would prove compelling to watch.

After an hour I was just used to the film just throwing random and boring shit on top of everything and trying to see if it fits. I also didn't care for the style. It seemed to me that it was shot very blandly and that it made a bad use of widescreen composition on almost every other shot. Shane Carruth also should never act. I hated his performance with a fiery passion.

Hated, hated, hated this. I would only consider watching Primer now based on your affirmations that it has nothing to do with this.

I'm not crazy about this movie, but this is spectacularly untrue.

[Grouchy]

I'm not crazy about this movie, but this is spectacularly untrue.

Well, boring is relative, I suppose, but if there was some hidden meaning in here, it didn't make me curious to find out what it was.

[Grouchy]

I'll give you this - I know Carruth is telling a plot in a confusing, elliptical manner - the problem is that the movie blocked me out so much that I don't care what it is. I felt nothing. The imagery wasn't disturbing or mysterious - it was just there.