When you want to review a movie, it is editorial licence to present a general plot synopsis which establishes the base theme and plotline which a viewer can expect. You don’t have to of course. There’s alternatives, however it’s the easy option for shitty writers, if you’re having trouble building a momentum, or if you just can’t be bothered anymore.
Apart from what could be explained as a roughly supernatural or psychological drama, there’s no reasonably short explanation for this flick that wouldn’t deviate, misrepresent, or dull. Even though most blurbs announce something about a parasite, this statement is too objective or direct for such a thoughtfully abstract piece of media. How confounding; and how so satisfying too.
Upstream Color in its basic and most honest format is a romance. Although, it hardly begins as one. Violently assailed by a strange creature, Kris wakes up one day to find her life completely destroyed. Soon she meets Jeff: a similar victim of circumstance. After picking things together, it’s not long before she’s learning more about her attackers, and that Jeff might not as innocent as he seems.
Rather than the technically bewildering engineering of Primer, this is a more human piece of engineering from Carruth who again stars in his own creation and puts up a somewhat drab job as the cowardly and selfish Jeff, while Seimetz fantastically plays the pathetic and broken Kris. As the lead characters, they’re more bottled than beer, and not exactly characters to remember.
The star of the show isn’t either of them, however; it’s the breathtakingly masterful direction. Upstream Color divebombs throughout planes of reality and plays with consciousness with an ease as taking a stroll. Nihilistically critical, human beings are reduced to animals, their nature discussed as no better than pigs, herded as easily as by the superior force of whim or weather.
Painfully abstract and self-encrypted, it tells itself as a waking surreal nightmarishness, bouncing between mirrors of thought, refusing to land on solid ground. Simultaneously far and close to narrative, the fluctuating account of events of Kris and Jeff become hopelessly loose and entwined, all the while a figure in the background playfully toys with your intelligence.
Brilliant and exceptional, this is an outstanding technical achievement and a rare display of quality modern cinema. Even if drama isn’t your thing, its explorations are hard to describe from horror. And if it is, get ready for a descent into hell.
8/10
Possession Media 