Upstream Color

Upstream Color is the second feature film of Shane Carruth. It boils down to an analysis of a circular chain of events that get thrown off course by the two leads meeting.

It is a hard movie to talk about because a lot of what you see is visual with a strange music behind it. The entire time I was watching it, my attention was held - which is good considering the long swaths of no dialog. I felt this easily could have been an X-Files movie if you only add in a few scenes of Mulder and Scully. A bit of sci-fi meets NCIS is a fair description. The lead actress was very striking inner performance and although Carruth acts, writes and directs - I would suggest he stay behind the camera instead of in front of it as he has an inconsistent delivery.

I give this movie three thumbs up out of four.

Official synopsis:

Kris is derailed from her life when she is drugged by a small-time thief. But something bigger is going on. She is unknowingly drawn into the life cycle of a presence that permeates the microscopic world, moving to nematodes, plant life, livestock, and back again. Along the way, she finds another being—a familiar, who is equally consumed by the larger force. The two search urgently for a place of safety within each other as they struggle to assemble the loose fragments of their wrecked lives.

Shane Carruth’s sensuously directed and much anticipated sophomore effort (his feature debut, Primer, won the Sundance Film Festival 2004 Grand Jury Prize) is a truly remarkable film that lies beyond the power of language to communicate while it delivers a cohesive sensory experience. With its muscular cinematic language rooted in the powerful yearnings felt before words can be formed, Upstream Color is an entirely original, mythic, romantic thriller that goes in search of truths that lie just beyond our reach.

Director: Shane Carruth

Screenwriter: Shane Carruth

Producers: Shane Carruth, Casey Gooden, Ben LeClair

Coproducers: Meredith Burke, Toby Halbrooks

Editors: David Lowery, Shane Carruth

Production Designer: Thomas Walker

Cinematographer/Music: Shane Carruth

Principal Cast: Amy Seimetz, Shane Carruth, Andrew Sensenig, Thiago Martins