Butler's Cinema Scene

Shane Carruth, Amy Seimetz in “Upstream Color”

“UPSTREAM COLOR” My rating: B (Opening April 26 at the Alamo Draft House)

96 minutes | No MPAA rating

Those who like their narratives neat, concise and uncluttered had best avoid Shane Carruth’s “Upstream Color.”  It’s a film for those who found Terrence Malick’s “Tree of Life” too conventional.

Still, it makes more sense than Carruth’s previous (and first) feature effort, the 2004 time travel oddity ” Primer.”

“Making sense” is a relative thing when dealing with Carruth. Narratively “Upstream Color” defies cateogrization or easy explanation. You could call it science fiction. Or maybe not.

 You could say the movie makes no sense.

And yet it makes sense emotionally.

Here’s what I can say with certainty about the fragmentary story: A young woman named Kris (Amy Seimetz) is abducted and subjected to some sort of mind-control therapy. In a zombie-like state she returns to her home with a flat-voiced handler  (Thiago Martins) who has her memorize Thoreau’s “On Walden Pond.” Kris is told that her mother has been kidnapped and she must come up with a ransom.

When she finally emerges from her stupor she imagines (or is it really happening?) that maggot-like worms are wriggling just under her skin. She is disoriented, lost.

Kris loses her job because of her unexplained absense, and is distressed to find that her bank account has been emptied. She is shown footage of herself making the withdrawl, but remembers none of it.

She harbors a vague sense of having been violated. Her OB/GYN tells her that her sexual organs have been damaged, rearranged, and that she will  never have children.

Kris begins taking anti-psychotic medication.

Then she meets Jeff (Carruth), who like her is a troubled loner. They have weird things in common — like similar unexplained scars on their legs. Both of them mindlessly construct chains made from loops of paper. They can be hypnotized by water running from a tap. They share an unspecified paranoia — sometimes they lock themselves in the bathroom and sleep together in the tub with the shower curtain  closed — as if that will stop whatever is after them.

Little by little they fall in love. The film suggests (it never gets specific) that Jeff has undergone conditioning similar to Kris, though he’s more functional.

In any case, their growing dependence upon each other is about all that’s keeping them sane.

Meanwhile a bland looking fellow (Andrew Sensenig) divides his time between running a pig farm and recording odd noises. For example, he lets rocks slide down the corrugated curved walls of a large culvert, capturing the scrape and eerie metalic echo. These sounds have something to do with Kris and Jeff’s brainwashing.

So do the pigs, for we’ve seen Kris unconcious on an operating table with a porker passed out beside her. The pigs seem to have some intimate relationship with certain humans…

Oh, yeah…there’s also something about a mind-bending drug distilled from insect larvae living in the roots of certain tropical houseplants.

Confused yet?

Well, don’t look to me for answers. “Downstream Color” presents a seemingly unsolvable mystery. You could watch it a half dozen times and still be no closer to the “solution.” But despite the frustrations of the narrative, you can’t shake the feeling that Carruth knows exactly what he’s doing.

Yeah, he could be screwing with us. But who devotes a decade to an elaborate and expensive practical joke?

The film “Downstream Color” most reminds me of is Peter Weir’s cryptic and hypnotic “Picnic at Hanging Rock.” Both movies tap into (without ever openly addressing the idea) the mythology of alien abduction.

In addition to writing, directing and starring in “Upstream Color,” Carruth also produced, co-edited and served as director of photography. He wrote the music (heavy on sonic throbbing and whining).  He’s self distributing the film.

He’s a control freak.

But out of that control has come a troubling, astonishingly sensory film experience. 

|Robert W. Butler