UPSTREAM COLOR [2013]

MOVING (INSTAGRAM) PICTURES

2013, USA
Shane Carruth
5 // 10



Is gibberish the new black? Are indie filmmakers hipsters? What would the blue bacon taste like? There's only one way to find out!

Four blokes commute to work on the same train for years. They meet every day, they chat, they tell jokes. After a while they know all the jokes by heart so, in order to save time, they've just numbered them. One day, a stranger gets on the same train and listens to this strange conversation.

   '45!'

   'Hahaha!'

   '12'

   'Ooo... naughty!'

   '73!'

   'HAHAHA!!!'

After a little while, he figured it out, so decided to join in.

   '42!'

Silence. He felt awkward, but decided to try and defend himself a bit.

   'Come on, chaps! It's a good joke!'

   'Yep, it is. But it's all about HOW you say that one.'

At the heart of the Upstream Color lies an interesting and original story. But it's the way HOW it's told that fails. Fails so bad, I've nearly given up after the first 30 minutes. I'm glad I didn't, since, like I've already said, the story itself is good, original and intriguing, but by Jove, did I struggle... It almost felt as if I was looking at a sort of handbook, a Smarty-arty Cinema For Dummies, or How To Be An Indie type of handbook. And the tips would consist of advice like: be boring. Use long eye close-ups. Stretch takes two times longer than necessary. Be boring. Occasionally shoot out of focus. Do hand-held shake. Be boring. Boring's your friend. Boring's artsy. Boring's deep an meaningful. Boring's hip. Oh, and don't forget to be weird just for the bizarre's sake. 

I don't buy it. For me boring's boring, full stop. I've seen bizarre. I've watched Lynch, Cronenberg, Fellini. I've seen weird and surreal, I've seen freaky and mind-warping. It was never boring. It was engaging, inspirational, puzzling and memorable. Upstream Color is none of those. It might have been described as Cronenbergian by The Miami Herald and Lynchian by David Cronenberg himself, but I call it a crippled impostor, a cheap imitation. It's a film that experiments and explores the visual languages of those two directors but at the same time totally fails to find its own feet, to formulate its own language and its own idiosyncratic vocabulary. It's a tribute band, pretending to have aspirations. It's a bitter disappointment. And a bait, because now I definitely want to watch Primer to see whether Upstream Color is a continuation of Shane Carruth's style or an experiment in different direction. Seeing how talented actor he is, seeing how much potential is in Upstream Color's script I can see and appreciate the fact that Carruth is clearly a very smart, talented and able as an artist/filmmaker and therefore I would rather avoid criticisms that could potentially be misguided and unfair. After having made only two films so far (out of which I've only seen one) he definitely deserves the benefit of doubt which I am more than happy to apply here. I would love to see, however, with his next release tightening up of the style a bit, less viscera and more direction, less searching and more coherence. I would hope to see an artist who is more preoccupied with bedazzling critics at Sundance (I am not saying Shane Carruth is, but such is my personal reception of Upstream Color) and more focused on actually telling the story. 

After all, a good photographer will take a stunning picture even with a smartphone, without the need for stupid filters to make it look more artistic. As it stands now Upstream Color (and Carruth as a director) gets my respect, but definitely not the love.

Visual style and narration aside, in one area this film definitely excels and that's the acting. Both Carruth and Amy Seimetz create fantastic, deep and rich characters, far more believable than anything else about this film. Also Andrew Sensening who, I believe, doesn't say a single word in the whole film is simply phenomenal as well. Even the lack of expressions in his case is full of meaning and emotional tension. Generally, the three main characters play much more with their presence than dialogue lines, which is only accentuated by editing, where sometimes the lines we hear do not correspond directly with what we see on the screen. In some occasions then we're not sure whether what we hear is an actual dialogue or the thoughts of the characters. It's one of those the little things which make me believe in Carruth's directorial creativity and skill even if I'm totally unconvinced by the general direction it took this particular film into.

All in all then, it's a perfect 50/50. A blend of solid and high quality elements (story, acting, sound design) and bad or unfortunate (in my opinion) approach to the execution. It's a fantastic joke, but you need to know, how to say it.


*** UPDATE *** UPDATE *** UPDATE *** UPDATE ***

Ever felt like you've seen Shane Carruth's face before, even though you actually didn't? Well, that is exactly the feeling I had, and now I know why.
What's really spooky, though, is that the man on that picture does not exist. It's a composite image of the faces of all the band members and not a singular, actual person.
Weird.