Shane Carruth is an elusive filmmaker.  He made this brilliant and complex low budget film called PRIMER about time travel.  He tried to make another film and it failed to come together.  Almost ten years after he made PRIMER, he is back with a new movie that is a complex film that will leave you talking and I will be watching it again to dissect the depth of his second film.  UPSTREAM COLOR is a densely layered tapestry of visuals and sound.    He is channeling David Lynch mixed with Andrei Tarkovsky in what is a follow up worth the wait.  I hope he gets another film made sooner.

UPSTREAM COLOR begins with a woman kidnapped and drugged by a thief.   He puts her in a highly suggestive state and she gives all her money to him.   The worm is taken out of her body and she forgets what has happened only to find her life is a mess and she has been fired from her job.  She meets an accountant who has gone through the same experiences and they find they are connected by their mutual psychosis.   They find they can wander to places where they think they have been and finish sentences from a book called Walden.  The movie splits off into another narrative involving a pig farmer who records sounds and experiences the lives of other people who have under the power of blue worm drug.

UPSTREAM COLOR is a film that was funded by Carruth and shot in Dallas under secrecy.   He plays one of the characters in the film in addition to editing and writing the screenplay and music score in addition to his direction.  The pacing and imagery reminds me of what Steven Soderbergh did with the criminally underrated SOLARIS.   Shane Carruth manages to create a film that is a transcendent experience.  

SPECIAL FEATURES:

Three trailers make up the only extra as Carruth did not record an audio commentary or create a making-of featurette.

FINAL ANALYSIS:  UPSTREAM COLOR is an amazing film that is surreal in its visuals with haunting sounds (and music).  I am disappointed trailers are the only extra.

This review is (c)5-9-2013 David Blackwell and cannot be reprinted without permission.  Send all comments to feedback@enterline-media.com