Upstream Color

If you’ve ever sat at your desk wondering whether there’s more to life, or been kept awake by an insidious hum in the darkness, this will speak to your soul – even as its enveloping, disturbing, uplifting story sends your mind reeling with giddy possibilities.

Upstream Color culminates in a wordless final act that is among the most transcendent passages of pure cinema in memory.

A romance, a thriller, and a science-fiction drama, Upstream Color tantalizes viewers with an open-ended narrative about overcoming personal loss.

How to sum up? You have to make synapse-spark connections, interpret events to your own satisfaction, pick up visual cues (a long stretch of the film is dialogue-free) and be happy with not knowing all the answers (you know, like in life — but not in most motion pictures). A perfectly judged, strikingly beautiful film, but also a lunatic enterprise which invites — even welcomes — befuddlement as much as wonder. A true original.

With its fragmentation and mysteries, Upstream Color offers itself up as a puzzle as well as a philosophical toy that you can spin and spin until the cafe closes and kicks you into the night.

Meticulous and abstruse, Shane Carruth’s Upstream Color is an idiosyncratic film that invites explication but defies total understanding.

No one is going to explain any of this for you — and the slightly snobby implication of Upstream Color is that explanations are for suckers.

There is two standout layers perfected in this game-changing film. The one layer has been mastered by many films over the decades. That's of course the image. In particular, it's influenced by the abstract idealism that many great individuals like Malick, Lynch, Tarkovsky had success over. But this one stand out for its next crucial layer. That's sound. My two unique ears have not heard a single more soul soothing, eargasmic, majestic and exhilarating sound desing. That's where the "game-changing" word that i used comes into place. When movies used to be more of a visual attraction, this film proved to me that could get the same pleasure just listening to the god damn thing. It's a masterfull blend of picture and sound. And since the story is pretty notional, there are lot of ways to see this. I have my theory, but that's for another day. I like embracing its obscurantism after all. In the end, i think, it's a rewarding experience that will floor you.

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

If you found Shane Carruth's first film, Primer, a tough watch prepare to be completely bamboozled by his second feature. The plot is...well unexplainable! It involves strange maggots, operations on pigs, hypnotic states and an unorthodox love affair. For most this will induce frustration and confusion and many aren't going to make it to the end, others will delight in its offbeat, hallucinatory structure. There is no doubt cart is a filmmaker of talent but if he gets any more obtuse he risks disappearing up his own arthouse orifice.

Shane Carruth's second film "Upstream Color" is just as obtuse and bewildering as "Primer". This guy is never going mainstream with this style; when most people including me have to spend nearly as much time as the film in Reddit (or Slate or io9) trying to understand it then that's a failed film style. It's as if he films a story that makes sense then edits out all the connective pieces, the essentials that tie one scene to another. We understand cause and effect, but in his films he removes or distorts the cause and you're just left with effects. ****'t.like.that. Good luck if you attempt to watch

I'm all for independent film, including experimental film, but this film is just mental... and by that I mean boring and barely comprehensible. Yeah sure you can piece the puzzle together but its just not enjoyable to watch. Neither did it move me or make me think about anything beyond how such a boring and poorly constructed film can receive such praise? I'm honestly baffled. A Cure for Wellness is a much better film about mind controlling parasites, albeit a bit disturbing towards the end. Still its how a film should be made, ie with a narrative that connects us to the characters and their journey, makes us care about them and want them to win, makes us feel something more than just confusion and boredom. Pigs are certianly full of parasites, and yes some parasites can even affect the mind of the host. There was actually a half decent story in the concept, unfortunately the creator wasn't able to find it. Now where's that time machine so I can get that 90 minutes back. Loved Primer and will likely watch it again, but not this one, sorry Shane.