“Intense and hypnotically powerful … at once emotionally direct, while narratively abstract.” —LA Times
It’s rare when a film lives up to its pre-screening hype at the Sundance Film Festival, but Shane Carruth’s feature did just that last winter. Science fiction, thrills, and romance merge in an intriguing plot involving a man and woman (Carruth and Amy Seimetz), drawn together by mysterious forces, realize they’ve become entangled in the life cycle of an ageless organism. Upstream Color is infused with visual and thematic poetry. Its final, dialogue-free section, which has elicited comparisons to Stanley Kubrick and Terence Malick, also features a complex sound design.
In addition to director and actor, Carruth serves as writer, producer, cinematographer, composer, and co-editor—as he did with Primer, his $7,000 time-travel puzzle that won Sundance’s 2004 Grand Jury Prize. 2013, DCP, 96 minutes.
