Independent Cinema writes: Shane Carruth was an unknown as a filmmaker when he debuted “Primer” at the 2004 Sundance Film Festival. A time travel film with highly scientific elements, “Primer” was thought of as a return to the intelligence of Science Fiction filmmaking and ideas. Awarded with the Alfred P. Sloan prize for films dealing with science and technology & the Grand Jury prize, Carruth’s career looked as it was about to bloom and he would become one of the best filmmakers to fly out of Sundance, until he disappeared. Within the years, Carruth had revealed work on a film that he had worked on for quite a few years called “A Topiary” but fell apart in development. Thankfully after nearly a ten year wait Carruth has released his latest film, Upstream Color.
The film industry flourished in 2013 with some of the excellent films released throughout the year. In comedy, we saw Seth Rogen return with This is the End, whilst Simon Pegg and Nick Frost returned in their tag-team duo for The World’s End. Additionally, we saw Zack Snyder breathe new life into Superman with the Man of Steel, and Martin Scorsese demonstrated his superb directional skills with The Wolf of Wall Street. With a whole host of films to select from, these are what the VGU staff chose as their favorite films of 2013.
TF:
Are you ready?” asks a peripheral figure at the start of Shane Carruth’s second film as writer/director/ producer/ editor/ composer/ star.
Seeing as his first was the dizzyingly complex time-travel classic Primer (2004) and Upstream Colour is even harder to follow – part love story, part biological conspiracy – the , appropriately, is “no.”
This is what we think happens.
After being kidnapped, drugged and implanted with a mysterious organism by the thief (Thiago Martins), traumatised Kris (Amy Seimetz) begins an affair with shell-shocked Jeff (Carruth).
Together, they’re threatened by sinister forces that might be emanating from inside or out, and shady secondary characters such as a foley artist called the Sampler (Andrew Sensenig), who might be an agent of evil, a figment of their imagination, or both. A good proportion of the supporting cast are definitely piglets.
Even if you don’t know what’s going on, you rarely doubt that Carruth knows exactly what he’s doing.
Combining flickering images of man versus nature with a faltering soundtrack, he creates a film of extraordinary fractured beauty.
Clickonline writes: "Artful obfuscation is one thing but when it reaches this level of disjointed scenes and unappealing characterisation, I call codswallop"
