Science fiction disorients and divides, crystallises and connects; the best science fiction does so all at once. It is this breed of sci-fi that Shane Carruth both makes and masters, the Primer auteur so absorbed in his creations that nary an element escapes his influence. Indeed, in his long-awaited second effort, Upstream Color, the filmmaker is writer, director, producer, editor, composer, camera operator and co-star.
And yet, great science fiction also does more than poke and ponder through a premise imbued with the possibility of things not yet reality; within the potential and the probing, it epitomises universal emotions and experiences. In Upstream Color’s poetic allegory of dependence in all its guises, it is love that resonates, and identity that furnishes the detail. In the intertwining of both within biology, ecology and philosophy, it is the elementary human quest for self, solace and survival that underscores the enigmatic narrative.
Kris (Amy Seimetz, TV’s The Killing) anchors the film with her unusual ordeal, one harrowing, heartbreaking, and hopeful in turn. The struggling video producer is stripped of all she knows – with a thief (Thiago Martins, God’s Pub), a sampler and swine farmer (Andrew Sensenig, The Last Exorcism Part II), and two floral aficionados (Kathy Carruth and Meredith Burke) in the mix – awakening after days adrift from her memory to reconstruct her existence. Nothing makes sense, not her strange aches and affinities, nor her precarious financial predicament. Only stranger-on-a-train Jeff (Carruth, in his first and only on-screen appearance since Primer) can divert her malaise through their inescapable parallels.
Though Upstream Color flirts with the obtuse and obscure in its flits and fragments of a tale told by less than conventional, often elliptical means, it creates a series of surprisingly straightforward links in a chain that lead to its lingering revelations. Its circling tendencies, amplified in the editing process by Carruth and his colleague David Lowery (director of Ain’t Them Bodies Saints), and affixed upon recurrent motifs of worms, pigs, orchids and the words of Henry David Thoreau’s Walden, are presented with purpose. Every intimate and expressive aspect, both obvious and less so, cautiously, meticulously, hypnotically builds towards an affecting overall experience.
As Primer proved previously, Carruth boasts exceptional technical skill in eliciting visceral and intellectual sensations; in Upstream Color, his ability to immerse the audience in an idea again manifests with potency and precision. His earthy images are seductive in their repetition and contrast, and his electronic score – rhythmically punctuated by silence – is evocative in its dream-like otherworldliness. The careful, compelling combination of visuals and soundscape recalls the art of similarly expressionistic, experimentally-leaning filmmakers, yet Carruth always carves his own niche, both in concept and content.
With exposition mercifully absent, and tangents tailored towards the speculative bigger picture, it is left to Seimetz to ground the film’s mystique – a feat in which she succeeds, and then some. Tragic, tender, tenacious, terrified and thoughtful all within the same moment, it is in her journey the viewer invests amidst the surrounding delicacies and densities, and in her dominance of the frame that the feature finds its core. Though astute realisations and affectionate renderings soar around her – of the metaphorical and metaphysical variety – Seimetz ensures humanity remains in focus. Carruth may fuel the film’s fire, but it is his lead actress that keeps it not just bubbling but burning; the empathetic, arresting face that ties together smart science fiction and sincere love story.
Rating: 4 stars out of 5
Upstream Color
Directors: Shane Carruth
USA, 2013, 96 mins
Release date: 22 August
Distributor: Palace
Rated: M
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