Upstream Color-Right On That Line Between Profound and Opaque

In 2004, a small indie film director named Shane Carruth brought to the world a science fiction film called Primer.  This time travel tale took a very different approach to the subject and thought the concepts it was dealing with were easy for any science fiction fan to understand, the narrative was quite convoluted.  This was intentional for the feel the writer was going for, with it's tale of a twisted timestream.

Upstream Color is his sophomore effort.  Released in 2013, this science fiction story is even more convoluted.  Not from the sheer number of variables in play, like Primer, but due to both the alien-ness of the concepts at play and his intentionally vague approach to spreading out the narrative.  From the excellent music, to the minimalist script to the non-linear narration, this tale of people caught up in what appears to be the life cycle of a strange life form and dealing with the side and after effects of the same is very, very difficult to follow.

Kris is a graphics designer who works hard and is seemingly in control.  Due to inadvertent exposure to one stage of the life form, she finds herself susceptible to suggestion and ends up getting financially ruined.  A mysterious scientist/pig farmer "cures" her of the contagion, but her life has been irrevocably altered. Drifting about, she meets Jeff, another who has been exposed to this life form.  The two of them come together and slowly find love as they seek to put their lives back together and find themselves still caught up in the mysterious life cycle of the organism, in ways no one understands.

Many have speculated that Carruth seeks to be obscure on purpose, that he disdains the idea of mass acceptance of his work, that he is making science fiction purely for the art set.  I'm not sure if that is actually true.  To me, it seems he just belongs in the same subset of abstract idea driven films like Richard Kelly, Richard Linklater and David Lynch.  He has a particular style, he is about ideas, but more to the point, he is about symbols, spirit and mood.

He is not for everyone, certainly not the masses, who like plots simple and delivered with 'splosions.  But even though this film is more difficult than Primer (I almost gave it a bad review until I had more time to think about it), for this this film is for, this film will be for them.