Cast: Amy Seimetz, Shane Carruth, Andrew Sensenig
Director: Shane Carruth
Country: USA
Genre: Drama
Official Trailer: Here
Video Specifications:
Codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 2.34:1
Original aspect ratio: 2.39:1
Audio Options:
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0
Editor’s Notes: Upstream Color released on DVD and Blu Ray today, March 7th from NewVideo. If you’ve already seen the film we’d love to hear your thoughts on it, or if you’re looking forward to seeing it this weekend, please tell us in the comments section below or in our new Next Projection Forums.
Embarking on a new relationship is a terrifying prospect each and every time. It represents a collision of idiosyncrasies and insecurities that can either self-annihilate or turn into a beautifully cohesive unit of flaws strengthened through mutual pain and tireless attempts to communicate amidst the minefield of invisible scars that mar our souls and influence the outcomes of our lives in mysterious and unforeseen ways. Upstream Color, amidst its enigmatic imagery, is the story of one such collision as both woman and man strive to overcome their innermost demons and internal damages accrued through the hazy transgressions of yesterday. It unfolds like a cinema poem with tangential respites meant to communicate abstract truths through its sparse fetishistic compositions using the universal language of emotion as its sole means of disorienting discourse with our subconscious. We’ve felt these emotions before, but in the context of Carruth’s mysteries of minimalism that form the tapestry of Upstream Color, these emotions carry the intangibility of foggy flashbacks from forgotten dreams, familiar whispers unwilling or unable to solidify into something corporeal offering only beautiful abstractions of the mundane obstacles of everyday life presented in a unique form of non-subjective cinematic lyricism.
We’ve felt these emotions before, but in the context of Carruth’s mysteries of minimalism that form the tapestry of Upstream Color, these emotions carry the intangibility of foggy flashbacks from forgotten dreams, familiar whispers unwilling or unable to solidify into something corporeal…
It sets about its lethargic cinematic poetry with snippets of a woman under the coercion of a man that uses psychotropic nematodes to lure his victims into willful submission, forcing them to liquidate all assets before moving on to the next victim in what seems to represent one sinister possibility among many in the infliction of the wounds that cause the invisible scars that forge our insecurities and flaws and define who we are and what we have overcome. We have overcome the exploitation and identity erosion caused by former lovers, and somehow through heroism, stupidity, and genetic programming we put ourselves out there again. We attempt to conceal old scars but we are unwitting to the fact that these damages are inescapable and define our personas as we are forged, broken, and ultimately reformed into the hardy travelers of emotional turmoil and expeditionaries in a desperate search for an implausible and profound connection with another weary traveler. It isn’t until we can embrace the flaws in ourselves that we can expose them to others, and through shared misery profound love can blossom into something semi-permanent in this transient universe.
Lovers are muted as the waning of passion inevitably occurs after there are no more secrets or useful conversations.
Carruth’s use of sound is as sparse as his visual compositions in Upstream Color, but through its simplicity it can supplement the images in profound disjointed compositions. Clashing sound and image in a disorienting collision, Carruth can simulate the breakdown in communication that happens after all of the secrets have been told and pain has been shared. Lovers are muted as the waning of passion inevitably occurs after there are no more secrets or useful conversations. In an alarming and unexpected turn of events these voices are finally brought into “focus” as a mutual understanding begins to form between these two lovers in the phase of their relationship that will either make or break them. Suddenly the voices become clear and the conversations become vital and topical once again as they share and accept their idiosyncrasies, a resurgence that will wane with time but there are always more oddities hidden below, new secrets to inject life into a “muted” relationship, and unforeseen dangers lurking in the murky waters ahead.
Though enigmatic in form, Upstream Color coagulates into something remarkably tangible about the nature of relationships and the cyclical nature of our imperceptibly but unmistakably ever-shifting lives. It whispers profound truths as if they were too sacrosanct to address directly, attaching itself to our minds like psychotropic nematodes as we remember fragments of its obfuscated emotions days after viewing the film. It is a film that will have to be explored and re-explored to hear all that it has to whisper to us, but if we listen attentively and allow its mysteries to unravel before us we can allow its profound undercurrent of emotional realities pull us beneath the surface minimalism and enigmatic structure of the film.
[notification type=”star”]88/100 ~ GREAT. Though enigmatic in form, Upstream Color coagulates into something remarkably tangible about the nature of relationships and the cyclical nature of our imperceptibly but unmistakably ever-shifting lives. It whispers profound truths as if they were too sacrosanct to address directly, attaching itself to our minds like psychotropic nematodes as we remember fragments of its obfuscated emotions days after viewing the film.[/notification]
