Opiniões dos críticos

In the spirit of Barthes' S/Z which opens by reflecting, ‘[t]here are said to be certain Buddhists whose ascetic practices enable them to see a whole landscape in a bean', I will condense my focus on Upstream Color to Kris' surfacing from the depths of the pool... I propose that, like Kris, we dive down again, into the film, to consider the relevance of this concept to our own moment, and the various paths we use to think about meaning migration...

For daring to carve out its own territory on the frontier, and for insisting on the concreteness of its own symbological inventions, Carruth's may be the American arthouse film of the year – if in fact one could say with any certainty what it exactly is. Perhaps we could characterise it as experimental – not in the familiar sense of an avant-gardist work but literally an experiment seeking answers, exploring the possible future of narrative film...

Carruth's impeccable use of lighting and framing can recall avant-garde masters like Dorsky and Beavers at times... But more than this, it does what dreams do, and what Kris's altered condition has done -- to make a religious fetish out of a banal object, to invest it with magical meaning.

Of the many unsettling pleasures of Upstream Color, the most radical is how open it is to multiple, simultaneous readings, ranging from a basic contagion/virus film to a metaphysical meditation on what it means to have a fixed subjectivity as a human being. Although the Thief and the Sampler can both be read as rough equivalents for a filmmaker — or any artist who draws on the "experiences" of others to create — it's really the Sampler who comes closest to standing in for a film's director.

Carruth, a talented and extremely ambitious filmmaker, clearly loves his symbols and puzzles, but his great talent so far lies in his ability to cast an unusually despairing and poignant spell. Upstream Color is one of the new decade's great, ambiguous fantasies of the challenge of social re-assimilation.

I'm not going to pretend I understand half of what's going on in the links between, say, decomposing swine and spontaneous orchid mutation (possibly the source of the title). But I'm not yet ready to dismiss what I don't get as the Emperor's New Mystico-Futuro Video Installation, either... Carruth's digital filmmaking has a beauty and surgical surety that I enjoy whether there's anything more to his movie or not beyond its meditative surface fascination.

Upstream Color is one of those movies that you either give yourself over to or resolutely resist. If not understanding something annoys you, you will struggle against it or simply disengage. You could say (or I would) that it's an exploration of the textures of consciousness, the light, colors, sounds, images and ineffable resonances that, as George Harrison phrased it, flow "within you and without you."

Apart from its references to Walden, Upstream Color is a self-contained, modern-day fable that is built on and beholden to science instead of religion. Each dense, polyvalent scene spirals around the next, utilizing exquisitely composed soundscapes and imagery to create an emotionally profound experience. At its core, Upstream Color is a bio-philosophical take on the rape-revenge film...

Perhaps buoyed (or thwarted, depending on your take) by the years of expectation heaped upon it,Upstream Color feels desperate to impress—and it's no surprise that in interviews Carruth talks about wanting to offer a "new language" of cinema. The more we discover about the world Carruth has created, the more schematic it feels in its obscurity, as though it's purposely eliding its concrete center because if we are privileged to look too long and hard at it we might dismiss it as silly or half-baked.

I was immediately drawn in by the mysterious, meticulous world of vision, sound and sensation Carruth creates, with its blown-out digital color scheme and intimate focus, which simultaneously seems to be contemporary America and also an alien zone of disconnection and isolation. Yet I emerged from that hypnotic dream state, 90 or so minutes later, feeling as if the story Carruth tells in that magical space doesn't quite carry the transcendent resonance he intends.

With its fragmentation and mysteries, "Upstream Color" offers itself up as a puzzle as well as a philosophical toy that you can spin and spin until the cafe closes and kicks you into the night.

This enigma-delivery system from a sharp mind has enthralling moments but becomes a bit enervating in its self-seriousness. By the end, the whole thing feels more academic than mind-bending.