Wednesday, May 8, 2013

Shane Carruth's UPSTREAM COLOR

(A commission to interview Shane Carruth on his new film Upstream Color fell through earlier this week, leaving me with some useless research and words. In other words, the perfect thing for my blog: shit other people don't want! Upstream Color is now available online via iAmaGPlay, but see it in theaters if you can.)

“But while we are confined to books, though the most select and classic, and read only particular languages, which are themselves but dialects and provincial, we are in danger of forgetting the language which all things and events speak without metaphor, which alone is copious and standard.”      —from Walden, Chapter IV “Sounds”
"They could be starlings." Kris and Jeff of Upstream Color.
Shane Carruth’s Upstream Color is a one-of-a-kind wonder. Modest in means but opulent in delivery, it’s a transcendental blend of science fiction, thriller and romance in the best possible ways. On the surface, the film is about Kris (Amy Seimetz), a young woman who at the beginning of the film suffers a psychological trauma with economic and physical consequences. As if someone hit the reset button on her life without her agreement, Kris starts over and in the aftermath fosters a connection with Jeff (Carruth) who seems to have had a similar experience. Parallel to Kris and Jeff’s developing attachment, the narrative explores the organic agents of cause-and-effect in their relationship: the harvest of psychotropic worms, the transference of DNA from human to pigs, and the spontaneous growth of an exotic flower on the banks of a river. If that sounds elusive, it’s because Upstream Color’s unique development is best experienced without a preconceived notion of plot.

But I already feel like I’ve said too much. Regardless of what you read before seeing Upstream Color, the web of ellipsis and referential sparks will allow for myriad discoveries. Fans of Carruth’s debut feature, Primer, will understand the enthusiasm. Primer, a surprise Grand Jury Prize winner at the 2004 Sundance Film Festival, generated a fervent following (check your interwebs) for similar reasons. An indie sci-fi mindbender, Primer was made on a well-documented shoestring that challenges its audiences to intellectually meet it halfway. Those who were willing to do so no doubt found inspiration in its wickedly smart DIY aesthetics—those of Carruth’s filmmaking as well as those of the characters’ who engineer time travel in their garage. But where Primer is a cerebral puzzle locked to left-brain mechanics, Upstream Color forges a far more intuitive path. Although structured on a scientific framework of entanglement, the narrative implies that within the symbiosis of physics is something quite spiritual. The requirement for audiences of Upstream Color is to emotionally meet it halfway.

Free and trapped: the pigs of Upstream Color.
Upstream Color premiered at Sundance earlier this year largely under a cloud of well-controlled secrecy. It had been nine years since Primer, and while the rumor mills and news feeds were churning with Carruth’s activities (including helping Rian Johnson with effects on Looper) there seemed to be nothing in the hopper for finished material. As if stuck in one of his own Primeresque time loops, Carruth fell silent in the years that followed his award winning film. But instead of wiling away his time in hotel rooms and libraries like the characters in his film, he was running the Hollywood treadmill trying to finance his next project, the now fabled and likely shelved A Topiary. When the verbal support—including Steven Soderbergh and David Fincher signing on as producers—failed to produce monetary support, Carruth went the other way and built his film from the ground up, much like Primer but far more refined in almost every aspect.

If Upstream appeared seemingly out of nowhere, it was because it was a production so far outside of the Hollywood system, it failed to exist within normal networks. Working as producer, director, writer, composer, cinematographer, editor and actor, Carruth was able to keep the project under wraps until he was ready. When a couple of minute-long teasers arrived online late last year, both fans and the uninitiated were intrigued. Those early glimpses, as well as the eventual full-length trailer, were faithful to the ambiguous, and glorious, mysteries of the film. Carruth has created a multilayered world around Kris and Jeff that is aware of both the macro and the micro of their lives and their relationship. They are connected by an intangible experience (the aforementioned trauma) that they themselves don’t even acknowledge. Their kindred paths create a bond so strong that their individuality starts to blur, but, similarly, their relationship to the world is heightened. When Kris is kept awake at night by a sound, is it because a part of her now flows in the ground water? Does Jeff also hear the resonance of himself there too? Maybe.

An event that speaks with metaphor from Upsteam Color.
Henry David Thoreau’s Walden plays a prominent role in the film as a perfunctory tool for mind control, but on closer inspection the book and film share an overall ethos, to the point where you can nearly connect any sentence found in Walden to Upstream Color. Perhaps it’s the underlying transcendental intentions of the film that so easily associate with a text considered a spiritual autobiography. (Here is where I would have asked if Upstream Color was a spiritual autobiography.) There is a shadowy principal character in the film simply referred to in the credits as The Sampler who (among other things) spends his time carefully recording ambient sounds. His obsessive pursuit is none other than recording the language that Thoreau worried that we would forget—a language that is elevated in The Sampler, Kris and Jeff for reasons that are locked inside the enigma of the film.

The film uses an immersive technique of both sight and sound that works emotionally on your subconscious. One of the most striking aspects of the film is the intimacy built not only between the characters, but also within their environment that goes beyond the frame. In a brief, disconnected sequence in the film, an unnamed man keeps replaying a scene with his wife in his head: he is leaving and she is making a sincere attempt reach out. She is going to try harder, and most importantly she loves him. He can’t go back and extend his own openness to her; he leaves; he shuts the door; it’s too late. Even as a minor moment in the film, every ounce of this interaction feels honest. This extends to Kris and Jeff where their convincing amity is constructed with performance, editing and a sound design where every interaction is tethered to the surroundings.

Like Primer did nine years before, Upstream Color will appeal for repeat screenings in order to discover or patch together the answers to its secrets. But defining those answers will be harder than mapping the time sequences in Primer, with many of the emblems of Upstream Color being abstract or obscure. There’s a lot to contemplate, and I’m not entirely sure an analysis can be anything but personal. I left the film thinking about Guinea worms, the relationship that I have been in for over 20 years, economic dependence and corruption, and the life-affirming co-habitation with my dog. Themes and evocations of Upstream Color are scattershot. Revenge, redemption and awakening are all paths Kris travel, but describing the film with those terms is reductive. To go back to Thoreau: “The volatile truth of our words should continually betray the inadequacy of our residual statement.” Upstream Color works on a visceral level, inciting something that is not easily explained. And maybe it shouldn’t be.

29 comments:

Unknown said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Unknown said...

watch movies online movies

simbu said...

Nice post. By reading your blog, i get inspired and this provides some useful information. Thank you for posting this exclusive post for our vision. 
Java training in Bangalore | Java training in Jaya nagar
Selenium training in Chennai | Selenium training institute in Chennai | Selenium course in Chennai

Selenium training in Bangalore | Selenium training institute in Bangalore | Selenium course in Bangalore

nilashri said...

Just stumbled across your blog and was instantly amazed with all the useful information that is on it. Great post, just what i was looking for and i am looking forward to reading your other posts soon!
Data Science Training in Chennai | Data Science Training institute in Chennai
Data Science course in anna nagar
Data Science course in chennai | Data Science Training institute in Chennai | Best Data Science Training in Chennai
Data science course in Bangalore | Data Science Training institute in Bangalore | Best Data Science Training in Bangalore
Data Science course in marathahalli | Data Science training in Bangalore

divya said...

Just stumbled across your blog and was instantly amazed with all the useful information that is on it. Great post, just what i was looking for and i am looking forward to reading your other posts soon!
angularjs-Training in pune

angularjs-Training in chennai

angularjs Training in chennai

angularjs Training in chennai

angularjs-Training in tambaram

angularjs-Training in sholinganallur

angularjs-Training in velachery

manisha said...

nice course. thanks for sharing this post this post harried me a lot.
RHCE Training institute in Delhi

Training for IT and Software Courses said...

Wow it is really wonderful and awesome thus it is veWow, it is really wonderful and awesome thus it is very much useful for me to understand many concepts and helped me a lot.

best sap oracle cloud training

best sap oracle cloud education & cerification support

best sap oracle cloud training cost

best sap oracle cloud careers

best sap oracle cloud erp education

best sap oracle cloud courses

best sap oracle cloud training institute

best sap oracle cloud course in bangalore marathahalli

btm layout india

Training for IT and Software Courses said...

I have to voice my passion for your kindness giving support to those people that should have guidance on this important matter.

best sap oracle cloud training

best sap oracle cloud education &cerification support

best sap oracle cloud training cost

best sap oracle cloud careers

best sap oracle cloud erp education

best sap oracle cloud courses

best sap oracle cloud training institute

best sap oracle cloud course in bangalore marathalli

btm layout india

Realtime Experts said...

It is amazing and wonderful to visit your site.Thanks for sharing this information,this is useful .Manual Testing Training in Bangalore

Softgen Infotech said...

Wonderful thanks for sharing an amazing idea. keep it...

Became an Expert In Cloud Computing Security Training! Learn from experienced Trainers and get the knowledge to crack a coding interview, @Softgen Infotech Located in BTM Layout.

nizam said...

it is the best blog with the lot of ideas


AngularJS Training in Chennai | AngularJS Training in Anna Nagar | AngularJS Training in OMR | AngularJS Training in Porur | AngularJS Training in Tambaram | AngularJS Training in Velachery

rocky said...

I like this article. I'm interrested.
Python Training in Chennai

Python Training in Bangalore

Python Training in Hyderabad

Python Training in Coimbatore

Python Training

python online training

python flask training

python flask online training

deiva said...

Great blog thanks for sharing Looking for the best creative agency to fuel new brand ideas? Adhuntt Media is not just a digital marketing company in chennai...
java training in chennai

java training in omr

aws training in chennai

aws training in omr

python training in chennai

python training in omr

selenium training in chennai

selenium training in omr

Jayalakshmi said...

Great job for publishing such a beneficial web site. Your web log isn’t only useful but it is additionally really creative too please do keep sharing more blogs like this.
oracle training in chennai

oracle training in tambaram

oracle dba training in chennai

oracle dba training in tambaram

ccna training in chennai

ccna training in tambaram

seo training in chennai

seo training in tambaram

praveen said...

Good Post! Thank you so much for sharing this pretty post, it was so good to read and useful to improve my knowledge as updated one, keep blogging
hardware and networking training in chennai

hardware and networking training in porur

xamarin training in chennai

xamarin training in porur

ios training in chennai

ios training in porur

iot training in chennai

iot training in porur

shiny said...

This is the exact information I am been searching for, Thanks for sharing the required infos with the clear update and required points.

sap training in chennai

sap training in annanagar

azure training in chennai

azure training in annanagar

cyber security course in chennai

cyber security course in annanagar

ethical hacking course in chennai

ethical hacking course in annanagar

jeni said...

Such a very useful article. Very interesting to read this article.I would like to thank you for the efforts you had made for writing this awesome article.
oracle training in chennai

oracle training in velachery

oracle dba training in chennai

oracle dba training in velachery

ccna training in chennai

ccna training in velachery

seo training in chennai

seo training in velachery


ganesh said...

Nice course. thanks for sharing this post this post harried me a lot. this type of blogs are really help for people great job.
Angular js Training in Chenai

Angular js Training in Velachery

Angular js Training in Tambaram

Angular js Training in Porur

Angular js Training in Omr
Angular js Training in Annanagar

harini said...

Great Post. Thanks for the share. really impressed. keep blogging!


Selenium Training in Chennai

Selenium Training in Velachery

Selenium Training in Tambaram

Selenium Training in Porur

Selenium Training in Omr
Selenium Training in Annanagar

Pushba said...

Wow it is really wonderful and awesome thus it is veWow, it is really wonderful and awesome thus it is very much useful for me to understand many concepts and helped me a lot.
IELTS Coaching in chennai

German Classes in Chennai

GRE Coaching Classes in Chennai

TOEFL Coaching in Chennai

Spoken english classes in chennai | Communication training

Best Training Institute said...

Amazing!!! This blog presents a very valuable information. Keep up the good work! Visit our website too. Thankyou!
windows azure cloud computing training in bangalore

hi said...

Amazing blog. Great share of information. Very useful
Best Software Training Institute in Chennai
Computer Software Training Institutes in Chennai
Best Placement Training Institute in Chennai
Best IT Training Institutes in chennai with Placement
Software Training institute
Placement Training in Chennai
best training institute in chennai
placement training institute in chennai
best software training institute in chennai with placement

Samia Beel said...

Flvto Youtube Downloader 1.5.11.2 Crack is a revolutionary multimedia application that comes with a very straightforward and amazing. Chave De Licença Flvto Youtube Downloader

crackeado said...

download a professional video editor software like fl studio 21 crack

crackedpc said...

what nice information. Thanks for sharing
https://crackedpc.org/

legendtip said...

Macrium Reflect Crack is a software application designed for Windows operating system that provides backup, imaging, and cloning capabilities for individual computers or servers. The software allows users to create full or partial backups of their hard drives, including all data, operating systems, and applications, and store them on an external storage device or network location.

profreesoftz said...

Macsome Spotify Downloader Crack is a software program designed for Mac users to download and convert Spotify music, playlists, and podcasts to popular audio formats like MP3, AAC, FLAC, and WAV. With this program, users can listen to Spotify songs offline on any device without limitations.

raja sb. said...

Keep It Up.CCleaner Free Download with Crack

CrackzSoftware said...

Keep it up.Revo Uninstaller Pro Crack