Continue with Google
>
Upstream Color Reviews
Disconcerting and unrealistic, malevolent and organic, emotional and bleak, Upstream Color is undoubtedly an experience that challenges those who call themselves cinephiles but rewards those who know that history exists as long as one forgets about it...
| Sep 14, 2023
Parasitic worms and pig farms, past and present, real and surreal, Whitman and Thoreau all come together in this strangely sensual concoction.
| Original Score: 4.5/5 | Jul 24, 2020
Thematically huge, spiritual in nature, sweeping and epic despite a seemingly limited scope, this is a story about the human experience, about healing yourself and others, and that defies easy classification.
| Original Score: A | Jul 9, 2020
Upstream Color is a gorgeous movie-the play of sunlight in the visuals is exquisite-but its images of intestinal parasites are, well, off-putting.
| Aug 28, 2019
A gorgeous, utterly intoxicating Möbius strip, a wholly original work of art that defies simple categorization and achieves something few modern films ever do - a true sense of cinematic discovery.
| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Aug 6, 2019
After just two films, Carruth has proven himself a filmmaker that's fine with creating works that are open to interpretation for viewers willing to not have everything spelled out for them.
| Aug 2, 2019
Carruth places us in the same radical position as his two stranded protagonists, who have been forced into a Thoreauvian journey to discover their inner "drummer".
| Original Score: 4/5 | Dec 16, 2018
Carruth, once a software programmer, shows a near-autistic capacity for distilling emotion into a finely-structured, rich and rewarding cinematic experience.
| Original Score: 5/5 | Aug 23, 2018
It falls halfway between standard narrative work and the completely non-narrative avant-garde.
| Feb 21, 2018
Shane Carruth offers one of the most hypnotizing and attractive films I've ever experienced. Beautifully filmed and told, Upstream Color defies the mind and spirit. [Full review in Spanish]
| Original Score: 5/5 | Nov 12, 2017
Blending languorous visual sensuality with a driving sense of paranoid urgency, this metaphorical mix of skin-crawling body horror and Lynchian mystery boasts a compelling dream logic that offsets its huge potential for being pretentious studenty twaddle.
| Original Score: 4/5 | Sep 5, 2017
Upstream Color is something else: a genuine, lasting mystery.
| Aug 21, 2017
Shane Carruth is a talent to watch in the near future.
| Original Score: 3/4 | Jul 12, 2017
Carruth's film feels like a subconscious flow of fears and anxieties. But the clarity of this anxiety is bruising and stunning.
| Apr 13, 2016
An equally frustrating and rewarding experience.
| Original Score: 3/5 | Sep 29, 2015
The remarkable Amy Seimetz is as central to the film as women in Krzysztof Kieslowski's late films, like Irène Jacob in "Three Colors: Red" and "The Double Life of Véronique" or Juliette Binoche in "Three Colors: Blue."
| Apr 9, 2014
No amount of concentrated analysis can really explain the level of deep emotion that Upstream Color effortlessly evokes.
| Original Score: A | Feb 20, 2014
Upstream Color is a trippy and enjoyable exploration of connections both direct and indirect.
| Jan 22, 2014
What the movie points to is worth following until you're left with an enormous map that you spend the rest of the drive trying to refold.
| Jan 3, 2014