Upstream Color

    Upstream Color
    2013

    Synopsis

    A man and woman are drawn together, entangled in the lifecycle of an ageless organism. Identity becomes an illusion as they struggle to assemble the loose fragments of wrecked lives.

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    Cast

    • Amy SeimetzKris
    • Shane CarruthJeff
    • Andrew SensenigThe Sampler
    • Thiago MartinsThief
    • Carolyn KingWife
    • Mollie MilliganMaggie
    • Myles McGeeMonty
    • Ashton MiramontesLucas
    • Andreon WatsonPeter
    • Frank MosleyHusband

    Recommendations

    • 100

      The Playlist

      You may not be able to figure it out, but that's part of the point of this sensually-directed, sensory-laden experiential (and experimental) piece of art that washes over you like a sonorous bath of beguiling visuals, ambient sounds and corporeal textures.
    • 100

      The A.V. Club

      It might be fair to argue that the resonances of Upstream Color are too obscure and internal — many viewers have and will be baffled by it — but it’s the type of art that inspires curiosity and obsession, like some beautiful object whose meaning remains tantalizingly out of reach.
    • 91

      IndieWire

      Upstream Color is routinely confusing but not oppressively so; its final exquisite moments explain little yet still manage to invite you in.
    • 88

      Slant Magazine

      Upstream Color is lush, rhythmic, and deeply sensual, a film of exceptional beauty.
    • 83

      Film.com

      As willfully oblique as his first film was densely foreboding, a rumination on the perils and pleasures of interpersonal connection that would seem to refuse any easy connection with even the most curious of audiences.
    • 80

      The Hollywood Reporter

      Upstream Colors certainly is something to see if you’re into brilliant technique, expressive editing, oblique storytelling, obscuritanist speculative fiction or discovering a significant new actress.
    • 80

      Variety

      This is a warmer, less foreboding picture than "Primer," not moving in any conventional sense, but suffused with emotion all the same.
    • 80

      New York Magazine (Vulture)

      I’ve seen Upstream Color twice and liked it enormously while never being certain of anything.

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