Upstream Color: “enigmatic” is an understatement

I have never been as ambivalent about a movie as I am about Upstream Color.  (More about that later.)

A character named Thief concocts a drug from corpulent worms, doses a woman and scams her out of her savings.  Another character, named Sampler, deworms her in a surgical tent at a pig farm.  This experience washes away her memory, and she happens into a relationship with a man, another loner trying to move on from a traumatic episode.  Along the way, we see vividly colorful shots of the human bloodstream and riparian ecology.  Sampler periodically reappears to solemnly observe the goings on and experiment with sound recordings, and he spends lots of time with the herd of pigs.

Yes, this is one trippy movie.  The worming and deworming scenes could fit in a sci-fi or horror movie.  The second half has the air of a romantic thriller.  The overall tone is of an art film or experimental film.  Upstream Color is written, directed, produced and co-edited by Shane Carruth, who also plays the male lead and composed the score.  Indeed, the cinematography and Carruth’s editing and music are strikingly unique and effective.

Even viewers who admire Upstream Color find it baffling.  What’s going on and what’s it all mean?  Halfway through, I put it all together:  Sampler represented the writer himself who was imagining – and trying on – different characters, plot elements and settings.   So I thought this was a brilliant film about the creative process.  But then Carruth himself set me straight.  At the screening Q & A, Carruth said that I was wrong about Sampler, that the film is about how people might relate if their identities are stripped away, and that Upstream Color is intended to be a coherent narrative.

So here’s my problem –  it’s not a coherent narrative – not even close.  If Sampler is merely an observer, how can he play a critical part in the plot by deworming the woman?  Why are the characters doing the same thing simultaneously at the pig farm and in the highrise? And what gives with the bearded guy and his wife (seemingly unrelated to the other plot threads)?  So I don’t think that Upstream Color is a success on the filmmaker’s own stated terms.  But my interpretation did work for me, and the music, visuals, editing, and lead actress Amy Seimetz combined to make the overall experiece worthwhile.

Amy Seimetz is excellent as this haunted and confused character.  (Seimetz is a director in her own right and is getting enough acting parts now to demonstrate that she has the chops of a potentially significant actress.  (BTW 25 years ago, Lindsay Crouse would have played this role.)

If you like your movies understandable, stay away from Upstream Color – you will hate it.  If you want a unique art film experience, go with it.