UPSTREAM COLOR, a new film from Shane Carruth (Primer)

I don't think there was any evidence of a connection between the pig farmer and the abductor/thief. If anything, the pig guy was kind of "rescuing" people by pulling out their worms.

"rescuing" people by pulling out their worms
lol

I lost track of how the girl got to the pig farm though

she followed her heart to her spirit pig

I feel mildly embarrassed now because it appears that I am the only one on this thread who couldn't make out what the hell was going on.
I think I made the mistake of watching it when I was hungover and thus not giving it enough attention. It looked beautiful though. I will need to watch it again before I come to a conclusive verdict.

The Thief, the Sampler, and the Orchid Mother and Daughter are all unknown to one another. They are connected by the worm but don't really know that or understand it.

When you capitalize it like that it looks like a Greenaway film title

This was terrible but cool that it was shot with a GH2

Basically any explanation about the worm or the pigs or the soundcatcher appeals to some part of me, and I'm assuming it's because I've got a secret worm inside my body.

The pig gandalf sampler guy ensured gathering of the fellowship by encoding Whitman into the worms
equivalent to hurleys numbers station in LOST

Are there any extras on the DVD, like Carruth's commentary or anything?

What a bad movie full of good stuff.

Just watched this introduced by my friend (an academic) at our local cinema; really enjoyed it. Not sure how to parse it. Seems to be about repercussions and loss of self...

it's also about removing your inner parasite in order to free your spirit pig

It felt more like a record than a movie. Like a FILM. A proper film. Not like a play that's been filmed, or a story made into a movie. Like it used every facet of film as medium.

LL otm

What a bad movie full of good stuff.

― Fetchboy, Wednesday, September 25, 2013 9:32 AM (1 week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

^

Are there any extras on the DVD, like Carruth's commentary or anything?

Nope. As someone who has no desire to hear filmmakers "explain" movies like this I say huzzah. (Then again I have no desire to figure out this one in a literal way.)

That + I also have no desire to see this one again.

Not in a bad way. It's just one of those movies I think I'd rather remember than experience again.

i really want to see it again to just experience it, rather than try to figure it out at the same time.

I don't think this worked for me on a Lynchian level or otherwise. There were some groovy audiovisual things going on but not enough to keep me interested. With Lynch I'm always glued to my seat, scared to tear my face away. This is another in a seemingly endless line of recent indie movies channeling identity crisis via a washed-out couple in their mid-30s babbling vacant words at each other in the middle of a kitchen. It really lagged about a third of the way through, a deliberately confusing montage of temporal and spatial displacement that nevertheless felt a bit like a trope we've seen before. I didn't hate the movie, but it wasn't Primer.

a washed-out couple in their mid-30s babbling vacant words at each other in the middle of a kitchen

my life

channeling identity crisis via a washed-out couple in their mid-30s babbling vacant words at each other in the middle of a kitchen.

I've been trying to find time to watch that last Miranda July movie for two months.

Haha, that's the other one I was talking about. I never want to see a film that does that again.

Whatever kept July from impersonating her g-d dying cat.

Two movies are not "an endless line" ... but did you mean the couples are washed-out or washed-up?

(I guess I prefer vacant babble to Primer, tho.)

xpost both. i dunno, i feel like i've seen a lot of this detached soft-focus 'what is it all about? what are you talking about? wait-whuh.... who am I?' kind of stuff a bunch of times before. maybe directors be having a personality crisis or something but i find it a pretty boring way to convey arty dissociation.

maybe just absorb the film instead of analyzing constantly, it's not something you necessarily have to think deeply about

it's just music goddamn it!

hehe, but what i'm saying here is it didn't really pull off that 'just sit back and enjoy the ride' feeling for me (as i get with Lynch and some other directors of that kind) because bits of it were either tedious or done-before or just overly confusing.

your connection with your spirit pig is strained

The worm has control.

Jainism but with worm/spirit pig duology

fuk, I meant zoroastrianism, whatever

I liked almost everything about it, tho I did watch it in 20-30 minute sprints. would def watch a tv series shot in this style.

glad to see somebody posted that carruth doesn't see the sampler as the antagonist. my takeaway was that the thief was the bad guy and the sampler was some sort of surreptitious healer, but reading some other posts on the thread I thought maybe I was mistaken. guess I should go read some interviews and crackpot internet theories.

follow your spirit pig where it leads you

I hope he makes upstream color II electric pigaloo

neon pigaloo

http://farm1.staticflickr.com/197/529174900_40c23dd968_o.jpg

Apparently no one has linked this, re "open" and "closed" movies:

http://chicagosburning.tumblr.com/post/50869565487/cb-195-sorry-were-closed-come-in-were-open

I am not understanding the comparisons with Lynch, at all.

The Thief is the devil and The Sampler is God - compassionate and showing us things as they are / sound like. The Thief sticks the worms of weakness into us - psychosis or substance abuse - but if we turn to The Sampler he can get it out. But The Sampler is part of the problem, as he is part of the cycle, which is extraneous to Man, so once we realize that - but accepting the self-help wisdom of Walden - we have to kill The Sampler to get rid of The Thief, before we can become on with the pigs.

It's all some sort of Randian bullshit, in other words.

wut

Just watched this, liked it a lot. I particularly liked that it seemed allergic to explication/explanation. No voiceover, no "aha" explanation, plenty of loose threads, plenty of potential ways to understand the linkages between the various characters but no overt parsing as far as heroes/villains or even passive victims/active agents, even though there are parts that draw upon lots of genres and emotional frameworks. It was refreshing. I can see how it might bug the crap out of some people but I really liked its weird restraint.

This picture made me think of this movie:
http://37.media.tumblr.com/0b43db2a4357a88ae7ccd464f4b65c50/tumblr_n3fwe2FcGZ1r4dx5zo1_500.jpg

:D

Barnyard productionz

http://https%3A//farm4.staticflickr.com/3922/14916512806_d9a43b179a.jpg

http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/150x100q90/745/gGyG5M.jpg