Upstream Color is director Shane Carruth’s follow up to his
excellent and mind-bending film, Primer.
If you haven’t seen Primer, stop reading this review immediately and go
watch it—I’ll wait. Are you back now? It’s really awesome, right?! Carruth went in a different direction with
Upstream Color, eschewing science fiction for something more metaphysical and
surreal. The basic premise is there is
an organism that when introduced into a host human’s body, renders the person
highly susceptible to suggestion. A
woman becomes victim to one of the parasites and has to pick up the broken
pieces of her life in the aftermath. The
story does progress into a deconstructed love story as well, but I definitely
would not categorize it as a romance film.
This film is absolutely beautiful to watch. Every moment is captured perfectly and as
much of it takes place outdoors, there is gorgeous nature shots interspersed
throughout. There isn’t much dialogue
and what is there will be confusing initially It’s almost like a silent
film. You cannot take what you see
happening in this film literally as nothing will make sense that way. There is a lot of heavy symbolism going on
and while that can be used as a cop-out for telling a coherent story, I feel as
though Carruth had a strong idea of what he was exactly trying to convey.
Carruth did the score for Upstream Color as well and it is
lush and ethereal. The sound production
is excellent and the ambient noise almost becomes a character and contributes
heavily to the story. The main male lead
is played by the director himself and he does an excellent job—I am impressed
that he chose to do so many things personally with this film and excelled at
all of them. Amy Seimetz puts in an incredible
performance as the shattered parasite victim and she plays the role of a broken
woman with grace and vulnerability.
I will say that this
movie can be very obtuse at times and you will struggle to figure out what is
going on, however, it is worth the effort because the message is so profound. It has much to do with cycles and the
breaking of said cycles to better oneself as a person. How you cannot let outside forces control
your actions no matter how much power they appear to have? This film will make you think and everyone
will have a different idea of what it means to them. Some people will be turned off by this and
you definitely have to be in the right frame of mind to watch it and it will
require your full undivided attention.
If you enjoyed Carruth’s previous film Primer, then Upstream Color is
worth a look.
-Review by Michelle Kisner