From the director of Primer, Upstream Color

missingtime

Early this week we learned that the latest film from the creator of Primer would be premiering at the Sundance Film Festival, and now we're getting our first real look at Shane Carruth's Upstream Color. Descriptions of the movie have been intriguingly vague — "A man and woman are drawn together, entangled in the life cycle of an ageless organism" — and there's not a lot of additional specifics here. What we do get is a sense of slowly building dread, and some brief glimpses at what could very well be the ageless organism in question. Check it out below

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http://www.theverge.com/2012/12/4/3727968/watch-this-teaser-upstream-color-shane-carruth-primer#130902473

I havent watched it as I'm a bit psycho when it comes to spoilers, but I was a huge fan of Primer and will be looking forward to this immensely.

Antar Bolaeisk

Trailer is quite vague, don't think it would spoil anything. Will definitely try and catch this as well, Primer was excellent.

Mickeroo

Embed:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rdYO3KWmcv8

Pretty vague alright, but fairly unsettling too. Should be an interesting one.

johnny_ultimate

It's looking like a good Sundance this year all in all - they certainly seem to be putting a lot of effort into promoting it compared to previous years. Plenty of interesting directors presenting their new films. Shane Carruth's second feature is undoubtedly exciting, but particularly looking forward to Andrew Bujalski's Computer Chess.

rossy1044

Looking forward to this one as I loved Primer. I wonder if the plot will be any simpler to this to try appeal to a larger audience.

johnny_ultimate

Wish I was in Sundance this year, some seriously interesting films being screened. Upstream Color received its premiere yesterday, and the reviews are extremely encouraging. Particularly enthused by this quote from the Hollywood Reporter:

All this will seem profound to some and mean nothing to those who never got algebra. As far as audiences are concerned, Upstream Colors certainly is something to see if you’re into brilliant technique, expressive editing, oblique storytelling, obscuritanist speculative fiction or discovering a significant new actress. Tastes running to anything even slightly more conventional should stick with what they know.

Bring it on

Goldstein

rossy1044 wrote: »

Looking forward to this one as I loved Primer. I wonder if the plot will be any simpler to this to try appeal to a larger audience.

A fringe sci-fi/romantic/thriller film being described as Terrence Malick meets Trent Reznor suggests we're leaving any notions of simplicity and mass appeal well behind us for this one - the lone exception to that being the spelling of colour . It seems to be provoking just the right degree of devisiveness and garnering rosy reviews from such places as to elevate it to "must see" status.

Can't find any word of a release date outside of the US yet short of taking a trip to the Berlin Film Festival in February.

Rabidlamb

Primer was cack nonsense, people use it as a superiority stick, believe it raises their intellectual currency but truly it was nonsensical **** masquerading as smart film.
Don't bother showing me that diagram either cause that makes even less sense.
I see it as a con to expose faux intellectuals, perhaps that was the true intention.

missingtime

Article from The Verge. I havent read it yet, there could be spoilers....

http://www.theverge.com/2013/1/22/3903524/upstream-color-review-shane-carruth-sundance

Matt_Trakker

Rabidlamb wrote: »

Primer was cack nonsense, people use it as a superiority stick, believe it raises their intellectual currency but truly it was nonsensical **** masquerading as smart film.
Don't bother showing me that diagram either cause that makes even less sense.
I see it as a con to expose faux intellectuals, perhaps that was the true intention.

You remind me of the time I saw The Wrestler and at the end some young lad in a green and white hoped soccer jersey hopped out of his seat and shouted, 'that was bleedin' sh!te, there was hardly any fookin wrestlin in it' :pac:
Needless the say, the cinema roared laughing and he left, happy as larry, thinking we were all laughing with him.

Rabidlamb

Matt_Trakker wrote: »

You remind me of the time I saw The Wrestler and at the end some young lad in a green and white hoped soccer jersey hopped out of his seat and shouted, 'that was bleedin' sh!te, there was hardly any fookin wrestlin in it' :pac:
Needless the say, the cinema roared laughing and he left, happy as larry, thinking we were all laughing with him.

You remind me someone trying to sound intelligent . . . trying.

If it made you happy so be it but I appreciate & applaud someone like David Lynch who goes out of his way to make surreal nonsense as an art form in itself.

johnny_ultimate

Rabidlamb wrote: »

Primer was cack nonsense, people use it as a superiority stick, believe it raises their intellectual currency but truly it was nonsensical **** masquerading as smart film.
Don't bother showing me that diagram either cause that makes even less sense.
I see it as a con to expose faux intellectuals, perhaps that was the true intention.

You know you can express your dislike for a film without having to blindly insult everyone who happened to like it.

missingtime

Rabidlamb wrote: »

Primer was cack nonsense, people use it as a superiority stick, believe it raises their intellectual currency but truly it was nonsensical **** masquerading as smart film.
Don't bother showing me that diagram either cause that makes even less sense.
I see it as a con to expose faux intellectuals, perhaps that was the true intention.

Ironically enough it made me feel very dumb.

Sad Professor

johnny_ultimate wrote: »

You know you can express your dislike for a film without having to blindly insult everyone who happened to like it.

This probably needs to be added to the charter.

Rabidlamb

Sad Professor wrote: »

This probably needs to be added to the charter.

Ah jaysus don't go rewriting the rule book over me.
It didn't get it, I researched it online & still didn't get it, there seemed to be no consensus on the timelines on how many iterations of each character were created.
I came to the conclusion that the whole thing was a ruse, a very clever one, to initiate debate & see if some people would take the bait.
Those who think they understand the pattern can scoff at those who don't get it but all behind it all the creators can laugh from above.
For that reason I'm out.

e_e

You don't need to understand a film to enjoy it! A film can be pure experience and while I didn't even come close to getting Primer on my first viewing it was nonetheless a memorable and interesting sit.

krudler

Rabidlamb wrote: »

Ah jaysus don't go rewriting the rule book over me.
It didn't get it, I researched it online & still didn't get it, there seemed to be no consensus on the timelines on how many iterations of each character were created.
I came to the conclusion that the whole thing was a ruse, a very clever one, to initiate debate & see if some people would take the bait.
Those who think they understand the pattern can scoff at those who don't get it but all behind it all the creators can laugh from above.
For that reason I'm out.

There's your problem.

Goldstein

Noone knew what the hell was going on the first time they watched Primer. Getting the principle of what's happening and enjoying the ride as the knots become ever more complicated is what's fun about Primer. Whether you get lost on the 3rd or the 9th timeline on the 1st or 5th time you watch it doesn't really matter - it's like when you're playing Tetris and at a certain stage the blocks just start falling so fast that eventually noone can keep up. One of the lasting impressions it leaves is that time travel can get messy - so messy that eventually noone would be able to understand what was happening. Triangle and Timecrimes employ similar overlaid loop tactics to tell their stories just in a less interwoven fashion. And even if the logic doesn't hold up to years of forensic analysis by milions of people, it's nonetheless a hell of an effort and one of the most impressively complex plots any of us have ever seen. I don't fully comprehend how there can be 11 spacial dimensions but that doesn't mean there aren't; and perhaps those that subscribe to that theory are off the mark too. But I can still be amazed by grasping the idea of a 5th. Similarly, I don't think people love Primer because they think they understand everything, they love it because they don't.

Tipsy McSwagger

Watched Primer yesterday on Netflix and its the first film where I was reading the IMDB synopsis along with it on the iPad. I still couldn't understand what the hell was going on.

Rabidlamb

krudler wrote: »

There's your problem.

Did you ?.

krudler

Rabidlamb wrote: »

Did you ?.

Nope, not the first time, but thats why I watched it multiple times, and it rewards that, same as The Prestige

Sad Professor

Rabidlamb wrote: »

Ah jaysus don't go rewriting the rule book over me.
It didn't get it, I researched it online & still didn't get it, there seemed to be no consensus on the timelines on how many iterations of each character were created.
I came to the conclusion that the whole thing was a ruse, a very clever one, to initiate debate & see if some people would take the bait.
Those who think they understand the pattern can scoff at those who don't get it but all behind it all the creators can laugh from above.
For that reason I'm out.

That's fair enough. I didn't like it either. I found its impenetrable plot, amateurish production values and humourless performances boring and almost unbearable to watch. Nobody cares that you didn't like the film or didn't get it. What everyone is responding to is the insulting manner in which you dismissed everybody else's opinion, describing them as "faux-intellectuals" who are only pretending to like the film.

Rabidlamb

krudler wrote: »

Nope, not the first time, but thats why I watched it multiple times, and it rewards that, same as The Prestige

The Prestige is one of my all time favourites, top 10 for me.
Primer couldn't be further apart on my scale.

Rabidlamb

Sad Professor wrote: »

That's fair enough. I didn't like it either. I found its impenetrable plot, amateurish production values and humourless performances boring and almost unbearable to watch. Nobody cares that you didn't like the film or didn't get it. What everyone is responding to is the insulting manner in which you dismissed everybody else's opinion, describing them as "faux-intellectuals" who are only pretending to like the film.

That's probably why I have avoided TDKR thread, I was obviously shown a wind up pisstake reel of that film such was it's crassness & lazy plot holes.
I wonder what the good version is like cause most people who saw that seem to think it's one of the best films ever made.

Anyway, I appreciate that some people may have got more out of Primer than me, all art is subjective anyway.
I apologise to those I offended, lets just say I don't see what they see.

FlashD

Wow! Only caught this thread today. Thanks to the OP for heads up.

Big fan of 'Primer', hard to believe it was made in 2004, thats nearly 10 years ago! Ithink it is one of the most interesting films about time travel. If 'Upstream Color' is as good (the trailer does seem darkly interesting), I guess I can look forward to the next film from Shane Carruth in 2021-2022. :pac:

Rabidlamb

I see Upstream Colour has hit the popular channels yesterday, US DVD release date is May 7th.
The reviews are very positive http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/upstream_color/
I was the one who raged against Primer but like a sucker I'm intrigued to see this.

conorhal

Sad Professor wrote: »

That's fair enough. I didn't like it either. I found its impenetrable plot, amateurish production values and humourless performances boring and almost unbearable to watch. Nobody cares that you didn't like the film or didn't get it. What everyone is responding to is the insulting manner in which you dismissed everybody else's opinion, describing them as "faux-intellectuals" who are only pretending to like the film.

I was quite captivated by the film on my first (and even second, compulsory WTF? viewing) but the charm wore off when I realised that any attempt to unpick the logic of the narrative falls asunder when you realise that the director has been deliberately obtuse and witholding of any clues to a coherent narrative.
Perhaps a director like Fincher could have gotten away with this, but as you say, the amaturish production values and humourless performances make it a chore and, sorry, but one for the club of tokers and tech nerds that like to sit about arguing about Star Trek time travel episodes in the manner that the Jesuits liked to argue about the number of angels that can dance on the head of a pin.

That said, I'm intregued to see his sophmore movie, hopefully he doesn't pull a Richard Kelly and prove the emperor truly has no clothes.

FlashD

Is this getting an irish release date? Had a check but no info.

Bipolar Joe

I thought Primer had phenomenal production values, given its tiny budget and the fact that it was done by one guy! I really don't see how it could have been better in that regard.

Goldstein

Have to laugh at the "amateurish production values" comments about a film whose total budget was $7,000.

johnny_ultimate

The fact that Carruth meticulously planned each scene in advance so he could shoot on expensive film stock is really impressive too. I actually think Primer has an incredibly atmospheric, moody visual signature that perfectly complements the claustrophobic, gritty feel of the film. And while it is undoubtedly a complex & unforgiving plot, second time around I felt I had a much better grasp on the film's grand scheme and a majority of the content began making a good degree of sense. The twistier, more mind-boggling content is fully justified too - since the characters get lost in this insanely convoluted, space/time jumping situation, it's only appropriate that we, the audience, also experience the dizzying effects of an increasingly unstable experiment. What better way to illustrate the mind**** of theoretical time and dimension hopping than showing it in a suitably complicated way?

I look forward to Upstream Colour, will definitely give it a gander sooner rather than later!

Psychedelic

Watched this last night, not sure what to make of it yet, thought it was confusing but it was interesting enough to re-watch, and like Primer it will need a few more viewings to get what it's about. Whereas in Primer I knew it was about time travel and could follow the narrative reasonably well, in Upstream Colour I didn't have a clue what was going on for the most part.

Sad Professor

While this film isn't out in the UK until later in the year, there's loads of ways of legitimately acquiring it now. Carruth is distributing it himself and it's available to download DRM-free from the official website for $20. You can pay via Paypal and it will play on anything that plays MP4 (Xbox, PS3, iOS, etc). It's also available from US iTunes or you can import the US Blu-ray which is region-free.

http://erbpfilm.com/film/upstreamcolor

tracert

Sad Professor wrote: »

While this film isn't out in the UK until later in the year, there's loads of ways of legitimately acquiring it now. Carruth is distributing it himself and it's available to download DRM-free from the official website for $20. You can pay via Paypal and it will play on anything that plays MP4 (Xbox, PS3, iOS, etc). It's also available from US iTunes or you can import the US Blu-ray which is region-free.

http://erbpfilm.com/film/upstreamcolor

Brilliant, thanks for posting. This is how it should be done these days.

I was hoping to catch Mud in the cinema tomorrow but it's only on in Dublin, it seems, so this will do nicely instead.

Edit: I missed the "isn't out in the UK until later in the year" before spending five minutes looking for Ireland (here and the UK are the only places not on the list, as far as I can tell, but the Isle of Man makes the cut for some reason!) in the list of countries while ordering the Blu-Ray/Download combo. So it's not exactly how it should be done but close.

Tusky

Watched this last night, having not watched Primer. Found it fairly disappointing. He's clearly a guy that has some pretty interesting ideas, but it just doesn't tie together well enough. Throughout the whole film I was wondering what was going on, and at the end there just wasn't enough resolution to satisfy the time spent wondering.

Having said that, visually, it is nice to look at and there are some good ideas in there.

indough

yeah it does look good, much better than primer anyway. it was shot on the panasonic gh2 and used fairly inexpensive lenses as well which just goes to show what can be done with very little these days.

johnny_ultimate

A beautiful, challenging and emotionally powerful film. Forgetting about the literal plot mechanics for a moment (a great article explaining them here) it's more than anything a poignant, rich examination of nature, love, friendship, human agency and - above all - the fascinating circle of life. Without being bogged down by the religious motivations of, say, Terence Malick (Tree of Life meets Primer gets us a little way towards describing the trajectory of the film) it's a beautiful examination of the endlessly cycling flow of life and the spiritual connection everything / everyone forges with it not through some higher power but by the the food chain, evolution etc... Science meeting fiction with great excitement and thematic depth.

It's also a carefully forged love story, with two people being drawn together and forging an intense relationship to the point where their identities begin to inseparably merge and intersect (brought about by the lingering connection forged as a result of their respective identity thefts). And, through their increasing spiritual link with the pigs in the pen, they are whipped through an animalistic, primitive and uncontrollable path. It's a film of escalating raw emotions. The musician, meanwhile, acts as a sort of substitute for Carruth himself (for the first hour of the film anyway) - immersing himself in this world of elevated emotion to try and create great art out of a rush of unfiltered humanity (and that confusing, heady rush experienced by a majority of the characters here completely justifies the sprawling stream-of-consciousness structure of the film itself).

It's all expertly put together - with an atmospheric soundtrack, dreamy photography and editing that links scenes & sequences together in all manner of clever, provocative ways. It's a film whose plot certainly doesn't dabble in the multiple timeline mind****ery of Primer, but while it's difficult to grasp the meaning of every little detail first time around, even when I was a step or two behind certain aspects of the narrative I found myself fascinated by the film's range and depth. Don't worry about understanding too much while watching - let it all wash over you instead, and you might just start to feel it's something special, resonating in strange but profound ways - and, key to this is all, is that analysing and thinking about it might well reveal a plethora of other reasons why it all works so wonderfully.

johnny_ultimate

Some extended thoughts. Easily one of the best films I've seen this year:

Upstream Colour is an exhilarating puzzle-box of a film, presenting a dreamy, affecting experience entirely through the language of cinema. When you watch it first time, some details will almost without doubt remain tantalising elusive and vague. But that initial mysteriousness also effectively supplements the film's generous thematic and emotional core. When you sit down to tease out the lingering questions & ambiguities, rather than fall apart you suddenly realise just how deep the film's reservoirs of intrigue, intelligence and formal inventiveness actually are.

Carruth's lo-fi first film Primer earned both praise and scorn for its unforgivingly complex portrayal of time travel. Casually shifting through multiple timelines while only providing the viewer with hints of how to work out, it drove countless viewers to the Internet to seek out the many fan attempts at explaining its snaking complexities. While it was hardly accessible, Primer's proudest achievement was its unfaltering, meticulous internal logic and design. Obviously it was science-fiction, but grounded in a world near identical to our own. Carruth was in complete control, and he challenged the viewer to interpret and understand the rules.

Upstream Colour is also dictated by very particular, tightly defined internal rule set. The narrative is more straightforward and linear (naturally lacking the criss-crossing structure of its predecessor) but in its way it's also stranger. We're still in hard science-fiction territory, in a world of telepathic identity theft and emotional connections between humans and animals. I won't dwell on the details too much (they've been covered well elsewhere), but it's presents fantastical ideas in a militantly down-to-earth manner, with even the film's imagined science only slightly stretching real-world credibility.

If your smarter than I, then perhaps you'll figure out all the plots unusual characters and developments on your own. Personally, I got the core ideas but was left wondering about what role many scenes and individuals played in the grander picture - the pig farming musician served particularly. Although details remained uncertain, I was still deeply drawn into Carruth's world. It's an immensely atmospheric film, enhanced by meticulous visuals and sound design. The relationship between the two protagonists is a deeply moving, intense one. It's a remarkable sci-fi love story, comparable to something like Solaris or Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind: two people drawn closer and closer together by an impossible to articulate spiritual and emotional connection. They effectively mind-meld, bringing their relationship to a impossibly intimate levels, while also experiencing the primal, animalistic reactions of the pigs they're initially unaware they also share a connection with.

Indeed, the grandest theme of the film comes through its portrayal of the natural world and, to use a cliché, the circle of life. Carruth is like a secular Malick, discovering transcendence in the deeply forged connections between people, plants, animals and everything else. Everything is linked by a glorious natural order, but it's also a film about free agency and compassion. It could be read as preachy environmentalism, but Carruth is far from a preacher. He provides the evidence, but asks us to engage with it on our own terms.

The director - who is some multi-tasker: writing, directing, filming, acting, composing, producing etc... - avoids exposition and explanations to the point where some will damn Upstream Colour as oblique and pointlessly confusing (accusations of pretentiousness can't be far behind either). And yes, the first go round might leave more questions than answers. But it's immediately obvious the wealth of fascinating material the film offers. Personally speaking, I felt a strong reaction to it even without fully comprehending everything that was happening on a purely literal level. There's the strong argument that not everything needs explaining, anyway - the mystery more than suffices. But when I did choose to sit down and consider it more, my own favourable reaction to it was only confirmed by personal reflection and the thoughts and observations of others (how appropriate given the film's themes)

What makes Carruth different than most directors is that he understands cinema so deeply and passionately. At times, the film is near silent (musical score aside), instead relying on camera work and editing to tell the story. Thematic links are hinted at through individual edits, with ideas flowing through image progression rather than the characters lecturing us. If it alienates us to some degree, it's only because full understanding requires us to somewhat reevaluate our relationship with everything on screen. Answers are not passively provided for us, as Carruth is more interested in engaging us in a dialogue. Everything we need to understand is embedded in the film, whether that's through the explanatory prologue or transitional choices. We need to rewire our brains a bit and understand the film through its very form - a feat only a the great few have successfully achieved since the silent masters experimented with wholly visual storytelling. Carruth uses in-film dialogue intelligently and music carefully, of course - these are intrinsic parts of moviemaking just as much as the visuals. The auteur - and that word is wholly appropriate for a vision so singular - rarely loses control of any of it.

In a way, that mysterious musician is an analogue for Carruth himself - an artist trying to create something unique through sometimes incomprehensible, overwhelming life experiences both shared and individual. The pig farmer uses music to try and capture it, but Carruth uses cinema. The results are frequently electrifying.

Mickeroo

Just gave this a watch and i thought it was very good.


The sci-fi basis the story is built around was surprisingly easy to decipher and it's less of a headcuss than Primer was for sure but i also think it's a much more engaging film than Primer. Where Primer was interesting due to it's labrynthine plot and the constant struggle to figure out exactly what's going on this is interesting in a much more personal & emotional way. It's a thematically rich film covering things such as identity, our connection with nature, love, loss and the cyclic nature of life.

The premise itself is never spelled out to the audience though it's not hard to figure out and is a fairly typical scf-fi/body horror one that wouldn't be out of place in a twilight zone or x-files episode, and actually the story sounds a bit silly when you break it down to it's most basic components

the main protagonists live happily ever after with their pig babies for example :P

. Yet through a combination of the brilliant performance from Amy Seimetz, the imagery, the editing, the music and the way the story is structured the it's elevated into a very engaging and in it's own way profound (imo obviously) whole.

It's definitely not going to be everyone's cup of tea though and Tree of Life comparisons are valid but it's well worth a watch to make your own mind up on it.

johnny_ultimate

Out in the Lighthouse and IFI today. If you haven't seen it yet, don't miss it, this deserves all the support we can throw at it. I am very much looking forward to a big screen revisit

e_e

Well that was a load of pretentious rubbish!

Actually no I really loved this film, reminded me of The Tree of Life in that it actually altered my perception of the world around me afterwards. A wonderfully heady and haunting experience. It pieced itself together more than I was expecting it too as well with enough connections between the individual fragments of the plot to keep me engaged. I love movies like this that just set your mind racing afterwards.

SVG

instagram filter [(episode of the x-files)-(mulder + scully)] = upstream color

I really liked it! Particularly the score.

johnny_ultimate

Rewatched this on the big-screen last night, and fell for it all over again. It's an extraordinary feat of filmmaking from start to finish - formally, thematically and narratively almost peerless, a film for the heart just as much as the brain. A rewatch with a better understand of the basic mechanics reveal what a wonderful job Carruth has actually done implanting the film with potent visual and musical cues that tell the viewer everything they need to know. Scenes like Kris first walking through a 'crowded' house or The Sampler's metaphysical adventures through the pig pen are pure cinematic storytelling, not to mention the deeply affecting

'drowning' and climactic 'revenge' sequences.

Such accomplished, innovative works of cinematic craft are thin on the ground, and Carruth's film is simply intoxicating. I wanted to rewatch it almost immediately.

Disappointed but not particularly shocked it only lasted a week in both the IFI and Lighthouse. At least it's easily legal accessible.

conorhal

Nice review Johhny. It really is one of those films that stays with you after you leave the cinema, like waking from a particulary potent lucid dream who's meaning you grasp at as it slips away. Quite a unique film (and I hate using the word) 'experience'.

tok9

Just finished watching it there.

I think I have a general understanding of what the film was about but I'd definitely need to rewatch it to get my head around a few scenes.

If nothing else the movie is a visual treat and the soundtrack is absolutely amazing (Currently listening to A Low and Distant Sound Gradually Swelling and Increasing)

charlie_says

I have tried to watch this twice and just got bored or wasn't in the mood for the kind of film that it is, or at least the 20 odd minutes or so I watched.

I also tried watching it on mushrooms (:pac:) but that didn't help either, I turned it off.

Will try one last time, maybe.

johnny_ultimate

Saw the DVD for this in the IFI shop yesterday, and couldn't believe the artwork they've chosen to sell it with. The image makes it look like a torture porn film! There's a reversible cover that's more similar to the gorgeous US artwork (although overloaded with star ratings over here) but it's a real shame tactics such as this still need to be employed.

krudler

^ Whut

Talk about misrepresenting something

e_e

haha that's as bad as the Limited Edition cover for Berberian Sound Studio:



I await the 1 star reviews on Amazon because it's not a Saw film. :pac:

indough

It looks fake, they haven't even got the name right

e_e

indough wrote: »

It looks fake, they haven't even got the name right

What do you mean?