Upstream Color (2013)

Upstream Color (NR) - Review

"Each drink is better than the last"

A woman forced to take a parasitic worm finds herself under the physical and mental control of a robber who takes her for all she is worth. Years later, after surviving the ordeal she still finds her life in pieces, but upon meeting a mutual survivor a relationship is created with him that both contributes to and solves the mystery of what they have lived through in this year's most devestatingly enrapting yet intellectually difficult film.

Written, Directed and Starring Shane Carruth, the creator of the even more challenging and diamond in the rough film "Primer (2004), Upstream Color is engrossing in its sounds, visuals and philosophies.  It does not shy from human compassion, human violence, Earthly beauty and natural savageness.  There are flavors of Terrance Mallick here, of Croenenberg or Lynch, yet with a scientifically analytical mind so present in his films and yet with a clarity of structure that was lacking in Primer which made that film both more mysterious and harder to follow for lay people. 

But make no mistake, Color is also mind dredging, with its musical and sonic landscapes milking your psyche for moods and superbly lowbudget use of a short field of focus cinematography creating a dreamscape and juxtoposition of both our natural lives and proclivities and the ones that society has yoked us with.  Luckily the film is highly subjective, and an enriching experience can be had by all viewers.  Perhaps the more you think about UC the more you get out of it, much like Primer before it; except without the dry science fiction, but real human (and inter species) relationships.

8.5 Huggable Pigs out of 10 (GREAT)