From Shane Carruth, the man who surprised the hell out of me with ‘Primer’.
VERY weird, very odd, very artsy, very well-made.
I have little idea what most of this means. It strikes me, from a purely logical and analytical standpoint, as something completely meaningless. It strikes me, in that sense, as something so incredibly pretentious it would make the worst artsy-horrid French filmmaker blush.
But I FEEL that there’s something here…it does not feel, as logically I know it should (in my mind), to be nonsense. It feels as though this is deep and important and possibly even profound.
What is the case? I don’t know, really. Perhaps the filmmaker, as he did in ‘Primer’, simply knows how to evoke feelings of meaning whether or not they exist. Perhaps his meaningless quirks happen to speak to my particular sensibilities for some reason I don’t understand.
Very perplexing, much like ‘Primer’. But unlike that movie, I don’t know WHY this is perplexing. For to be perplexed, one must care. And I do not know why I care.
In any case, this is beyond me: if it’s worthless nonsense then I was interested in worthless nonsense for the duration and inspired enough to write this long and felt a review.
If it’s more, I can’t say what.
It’s enough to make me actually question my subconscious mind – to wonder why I felt this way. Because I don’t know.
Either way, it’s something I’m glad I watched. But I can’t say why I’m glad nor can I explain the movie, really, in any worthwhile fashion to a non-viewer.
It’s like…listening to Brian Eno if I liked Brian Eno, or going on a trip without taking drugs. Unexplainable to one who does not experience, and that’s the way it should be. Maybe?
Tranquil.
It’s like…having a dream – that you don’t understand while it’s happening, and you don’t understand from what you recall imperfectly upon awakening. But nevertheless, it does make you refreshed and full of a mild wonder. Eventually it will fade, and then it will be impossible to recall why it had meaning at all. Because you never really knew, you just felt.
The writer and director also wrote the score, so the “experience” is solely his. I wish I could peek inside his mind to know what this is, if only to know whether it’s an F- or an A+. Because I can’t tell.
Inspirational Review: “While Upstream Color has a fair amount of (purely functional) dialogue, it’s essentially a silent film, obsessed not just with color but with texture and movement and rhythm.” – Mike D’Angelo
Grade: B-
7/14/18: The Great Grade Update. Grade: B