Upstream Color - Why are people raving about it? ([SPOILERS] probably!) (1 Viewer)

[pissypants]

I'd was a fan of Primer and was peripherally aware of the many superlatives bandied about in relation to this film that I had to curb my expectations before I saw it. Good job I did.

No doubt it's beautifully shot, lit, and edited, but as a whole it left me completely cold. I really didn't care at all about the characters or what they were going through, and once the mecahnics of what was actually happening were slowly revealed I thought: "Well? So what?"

I've gotten more out of classic Twilight Zone episodes than I did this... The Tree of Life was sort of the "Macro" to Upstream Colour's "Micro" - but still....

Can anyone explain to me why they liked it?

 

[Richie]

There's 3 or 4 takes on it (including a trademark Washingcattle multi-paragraph-er) in the film reviews thread.. I suppose the key is that if you don't care about the characters, there's not much else in the film for you (besides, as mentioned, imagery etc). I definitely thought it was worth seeing, and I thought the lead actress' performance did enough to give some actual emotional weight to the film, though I can easily see how somebody would find that guy's films to be aloof, or too abstract to be engaging.

 

[Jill Hives]

I meant to get back to this in the other thread but were you suppose to really connect with the characters at all? They had nothing to give, it had all been robbed.

 

[washingcattle]

There's 3 or 4 takes on it (including a trademark Washingcattle multi-paragraph-er) in the film reviews thread.. I suppose the key is that if you don't care about the characters, there's not much else in the film for you (besides, as mentioned, imagery etc). I definitely thought it was worth seeing, and I thought the lead actress' performance did enough to give some actual emotional weight to the film, though I can easily see how somebody would find that guy's films to be aloof, or too abstract to be engaging.

I can re-post that here to speed things along.

 

[7 - No tomorrow]

I can re-post that here to speed things along.

Do.

I may need to borrow from it.

 

[Jill Hives]

Maybe I took the whole film wrong? I haven't read a thing on it but this is how I took it.

I thought the whole point was to make the characters empty. The got all their lives robbed (physically and spiritually) so they were striped down to the bare necessities, they both admitted they were 'lucky' to even have their crappy jobs. They were drones. Shells of people. Even her job at the gallery she was picking out artwork that was based on life forms but mechanically moving. I figured that's why the guy always chose Walden. So they would remember it and feel okay (or calm) isolated with nothing. Like the bliss in drinking water.

The fact that they found each other (I assumed they were once married since he was divorced and she said she owned half her house) was the only reason they began to remember. The past connection or interconnection of memories. Or maybe they weren't married and just the fact they let each other in after being alone for so long started the awakening or mimicking. She had mentioned she couldn't even see her nieces and nephews so she was avoiding connection with everyone before him.

The kids in the beginning were using it as a drug (only drinking the essence) to feel connected, mimicking each other. However, too much eats away at you and isolates like any hard drug.It becomes controlling. I seemed like a the worse bits of society in a ring to me. A growing chain like they kept building with paper. The guy steals from them, tells them to go to pig man, he takes it away from them leaving them empty, uses the pigs as an voyeuristic fetish in a Waldenesque setting wanting to be connected to everything, and the pigs dying or through excrement make the beautiful (upstream color) flowers contain the drug.

It seemed to me that it wasn't the connection to the pigs that gave them humanity back. It was letting someone back into their lives to feel a human connection again. The importance of connection and why the man loved the pigs out in the middle of nowhere. I probably got it all wrong but I found it uplifting.

 

[Jill Hives]

I never did go back and watch the beginning, the question I had was... was the dude that robbed her the artist she was going to meet? Was this all part of it, meaning the creation of the special orchids, the music from nature, the careful watching of human expression and the altering of human experience? I might have been reading too much into it but wasn't sure if the whole thing was an Rube Goldberg expression of the art of human nature. Everything once beautiful turns to shit. Everything once shit turns beautiful. A cycle only broke by being connected, caring and observant of everything around you.

 

[washingcattle]

Upstream Colour

Shane Carruth's work is it seems always going to be cinematic marmite. And really that's fine plenty of directors work is either loved or loathed in equal measure. For every person asserting that David Lynch is the worlds most gifted film maker there is another soul who is equally convinced that the man is a charlatan, that he wears the emperors cast offs and simply doesn't now his way around plausibility and plot, choosing instead to mask his short comings with excessive amounts of tone and mood and downright insanity and flights of imagination. Frankly it's easy to see why people feel this. I don't agree but I can see their point. I can see why Lynch could leave people cold. There are of course the folks who love Lynch and espouse at great length ignorant elitist rhetoric, the general basis of which is if you don't like Lynch it's because you just "don't get him". It’s an irritating example of how people who are satisfied with there own level of intelligence assume that if you don’t share the same high brow interests as them you must be intellectually inferior.

So what if I’d rather listen to The Beastie Boys and pound Buckfast into me on a Saturday night ? Huh ?

You just can’t intellectualise taste in art nor in food nor in food nor in sex or any of the great things in life. And that’s why Caddyshack is as good as 2001.

Ahem, eh what was I talking about ?

Oh yes.


Carruth, occupies a similar position in the movie world and unfortunately the same rhetoric exists. If you didn't like Caruths previous film "Primer" a film with a plot so complicated there are actually diagrams available on the internet explaining what is going on and even the fucking diagrams are near impenetrable, then you "didn't undertand it". I didn't like Primer. I understood the plot mechanics, however, I still didn't like it. It's not that I didn't get it. In reality there really isn't that much to get. Primer is a film of such complexity of plot that it's hard to take in what's happening on any other level than just that, the plot is the surface of the film and in reality it might be enough to drive the film along but there is nothing else going on. there are in essence no memorable lines of dialogue, no characters to speak of and though it looks eye catching it's hard to say it's really beautiful in any way. It's this lack of depth that i don't like But try having that discussion with Primer fans and all you'll probably get back is "You obviously didn't understand it" followed by a patronisng nod and a smug smile. Sometimes I'm surprised there aren't more acts of violence carried out during film discussions.
It's this self same flaw which also sinks Carruths new film Upstream Colour (and yes I realise it's American and therefore spelt differently, I just don't care) so prepare for the smirk and nod test when you discuss it with your college mates.

To try to explain the plot would be an exercise in futility. As with Primer there is a very high "concept" driving the plot forward, there's a plant there are some pigs and there are a guy and a girl who meet and seem to fall in love. Imagine if Charlie Kaufman had written a heist movie is the only way I can describe it. All of that works, though at times you may find yourself scratching your head as to who is leading who around by the nose it still makes a Carruth kind of sense and to be honest even now thinking about how bonkers the plot is i find myself half smiling and also really frustrated.

If Upstream Colour was to be accurately described in terms of other directors work then Kaufman is the major touchstone in terms of plot however in terms of direction it's as though he handed the screenplay over to David Fincher, who unfortunately always directs as though he is performing surgery. Carruth simply cannot write or direct characters and even though he manages to make the film look beautiful and there are committed performances from himself and Amy Seimetz, they simply don't say or do anything particularly personable. As a result the "romance" between the two which makes up a large section of the middle of the film feels awkward and simply dull. Scenes which cry out for some sort of humour or humanity are left to linger in what I can only imagine is an attempt at profundity but instead just feel over wrought and too heavy handed and emotionally stunted. It's extremely damning, but for the most part the two characters I felt most emotionally engaged with were pigs.

The plot has enough going for it to keep you watching but there is no warmth to be found here and so as the film neared it's conclusion I found myself not really caring about the lives of the protagonists.

Don't get me wrong there are good things here, Carruths directorial decisions are occasionally spot on,
The "concept" is great, the mysterious, ominous tone, the pace is deliberate and changes at just the right moments to jolt the film forward and there are times that the film looks as though Terrence Malik had turned up to lend a hand. This is willfully difficult watching and that is commendable. In the end though for all it's promise I couldn't help but wish that Carruth had a writing partner, someone like Kaufman who understands implicitly that all film, and all great art deals with humanity, and that focussing solely on a feast for the head means sacrificing any connection to the heart, Upstream Colour is a film with a relationship at it's centre which looks like it was written by empirical observation, perhaps by the tin man, instead of by someone who can connect to the sort of bipolar shifts which occur when two damaged people interact.

If you like Primer you'll probably love this, if you like people you may struggle.

 

[washingcattle]

Maybe I took the whole film wrong? I haven't read a thing on it but this is how I took it.

I thought the whole point was to make the characters empty. The got all their lives robbed (physically and spiritually) so they were striped down to the bare necessities, they both admitted they were 'lucky' to even have their crappy jobs. They were drones. Shells of people. Even her job at the gallery she was picking out artwork that was based on life forms but mechanically moving. I figured that's why the guy always chose Walden. So they would remember it and feel okay (or calm) isolated with nothing. Like the bliss in drinking water.

The fact that they found each other (I assumed they were once married since he was divorced and she said she owned half her house) was the only reason they began to remember. The past connection or interconnection of memories. Or maybe they weren't married and just the fact they let each other in after being alone for so long started the awakening or mimicking. She had mentioned she couldn't even see her nieces and nephews so she was avoiding connection with everyone before him.

The kids in the beginning were using it as a drug (only drinking the essence) to feel connected, mimicking each other. However, too much eats away at you and isolates like any hard drug.It becomes controlling. I seemed like a the worse bits of society in a ring to me. A growing chain like they kept building with paper. The guy steals from them, tells them to go to pig man, he takes it away from them leaving them empty, uses the pigs as an voyeuristic fetish in a Waldenesque setting wanting to be connected to everything, and the pigs dying or through excrement make the beautiful (upstream color) flowers contain the drug.

It seemed to me that it wasn't the connection to the pigs that gave them humanity back. It was letting someone back into their lives to feel a human connection again. The importance of connection and why the man loved the pigs out in the middle of nowhere. I probably got it all wrong but I found it uplifting.

It's an interesting way of looking at it.

Me, I think you're filling in the blanks, i.e the blank being the characters lack of .. well .. character to be honest.

If you take an empty character, say The Terminator for example, he still has a character and we as an audience have an emotional response to that character.

Another example of an "empty" character would be Betty from Mullholand Drive, she's completely devoid of character when we meet her but she still elicits pity, concern and sympathy, and as such even though she says so little by the time she's breaking down during the stage performance, we as an audience are invested in this.

Even if Carruth intended to write two completely empty drained people, and executed this perfectly it still remains a huge flaw that the characters remain so un-engaging, and the film remains sterile. I felt nothing throughout it to be honest.

As it stands I don't think that was his intention. I just don't think he is as adept at characters and dialogue as he is at plot.

 

[washingcattle]

I never did go back and watch the beginning, the question I had was... was the dude that robbed her the artist she was going to meet? Was this all part of it, meaning the creation of the special orchids, the music from nature, the careful watching of human expression and the altering of human experience? I might have been reading too much into it but wasn't sure if the whole thing was an Rube Goldberg expression of the art of human nature. Everything once beautiful turns to shit. Everything once shit turns beautiful. A cycle only broke by being connected, caring and observant of everything around you.

I thought he was just an opportunistic thief and the farmer was just the kind of voyeur that samples nature in the same way that he "samples" peoples lives through the pigs.

 

[Jill Hives]

Even if Carruth intended to write two completely empty drained people, and executed this perfectly it still remains a huge flaw that the characters remain so un-engaging, and the film remains sterile. I felt nothing throughout it to be honest.

Is that not a comment on society? People walk by homeless people every day and feel nothing. People are being tortured one way or another all over the world and people barely blink an eye because they are consumed by their own lives and belongings. Why would a thief make them read Walden if not for a reason? Nearly a Fight Club meets Enternal Sunshine. People feel numb with regard to most people, that's life as we know it. Needing to feel connected to get something out of it for yourself is a perfect example. Films are not reality, they are entertainment. This film for me felt like reality and I think that's why I liked it. Or maybe it's just my perspective at the moment.

 

[Jill Hives]

I thought he was just an opportunistic thief and the farmer was just the kind of voyeur that samples nature in the same way that he "samples" peoples lives through the pigs.

Didn't Thoreau talk about listening to the beautiful sounds of the animals moving in the night, etc? How did they know to go to him? The theif must have to told them. He was buying the flowers from the women who picked them from near the farm. Actually Thoreau's cabin was only a couple miles away from a city. I assumed it was all connected. The thief got the money. The women got the pure unknowing beauty of the flowers. The pig man got the isolation be in nature but still be connected to people through the pigs, and it left two lives empty for all their gain until they found each other to feel safe and understood. I found it utterly romantic. Like, I said maybe I got it all wrong but I like what I took from it, even if I did.

 

[washingcattle]

Is that not a comment on society? People walk by homeless people every day and feel nothing. People are being tortured one way or another all over the world and people barely blink an eye because they are consumed by their own lives and belongings. Why would a thief make them read Walden if not for a reason? Nearly a Fight Club meets Enternal Sunshine. People feel numb with regard to most people, that's life as we know it. Needing to feel connected to get something out of it for yourself is a perfect example. Films are not reality, they are entertainment. This film for me felt like reality and I think that's why I liked it. Or maybe it's just my perspective at the moment.

Well no, not really, a person tortured (figuritively or literally) doesn't have any impact because it's an image, it has a sort of visual rhetoric which percludes engagement at this point. We are de-sesintised to the image of annonymous suffering. On the other hand we're not so de-senitised that if we know the person involved whether by name or personally we do feel a response.

We spend so much time in the film in the presence of the protagonists that we should feel something about them. They aren't simply faces in a crowd. If that was the intention he could have filmed the entire thing through a long lens from miles away as an act of looking rather than interacting. There are moments when we as an audience are invited into their lives, their bed even. So I can't see how that intent is present.

 

[washingcattle]

Didn't Thoreau talk about listening to the beautiful sounds of the animals moving in the night, etc? How did they know to go to him? The theif must have to told them. He was buying the flowers from the women who picked them from near the farm. Actually Thoreau's cabin was only a couple miles away from a city. I assumed it was all connected. The thief got the money. The women got the pure unknowing beauty of the flowers. The pig man got the isolation be in nature but still be connected to people through the pigs, and it left two lives empty for all their gain until they found each other to feel safe and understood. I found it utterly romantic. Like, I said maybe I got it all wrong but I like what I took from it, even if I did.

Firstly there is no wrong. It's art innit ?


Secondly I like that idea but I felt that all the folks who had been robbed knew that something was odd about their lives but couldn't put there finger on what it was. The fact that those two found each other galvanised their ability to look back, through the looking glass as it were.

 

[Jill Hives]

We spend so much time in the film in the presence of the protagonists that we should feel something about them. They aren't simply faces in a crowd.

I did but that probably says more about me. :/

 

[Jill Hives]

Firstly there is no wrong. It's art innit ?


Secondly I like that idea but I felt that all the folks who had been robbed knew that something was odd about their lives but couldn't put there finger on what it was. The fact that those two found each other galvanised their ability to look back, through the looking glass as it were.

I thought they felt empty not odd. The man smiled when he received the book in the mail as if he was suddenly connected to something or someone. I thought that the only reason the cycle broke was because they randomly found each other again (if married / separated previously). Or found each other that allowed them to mimic or know each other's moves/thoughts like the kids doing the worm for fun. Had it not happened to both of them it wouldn't have broken the cycle.

 

[washingcattle]

I thought they felt empty not odd. The man smiled when he received the book in the mail as if he was suddenly connected to something or someone. I thought that the only reason the cycle broke was because they randomly found each other again (if married / separated previously). Or found each other that allowed them to mimic or know each other's moves/thoughts like the kids doing the worm for fun. Had it not happened to both of them it wouldn't have broken the cycle.

Yeah that's kind of what I got from it too, except that I thought the characters were just poorly written rather than deliberately aloof.

 

[Jill Hives]

Yeah, I suppose I would use the word gutted rather than aloof.

 

[washingcattle]

Yeah, I suppose I would use the word broken rather than aloof.

Yeah either or. I'll give it one thing we're talking about it.

That hasn't happened since Zero Dark Thirty.

(Actually two things, It did look absolutely beautiful)

 

[Jill Hives]

Well, I've haven't had the chance to talk about it since I saw it. Most of what I have seen lately hasn't been worth discussion. I also changed broken to gutted because I think it describes how I saw the characters (or how they were written) a bit better. The frame is there but nothing is left inside. It's all been torn away.