250 Words or Less: Upstream Color (2013)

No, I didn't really understand the end of Shane Carruth's Primer, but I'll go on record and say that I don't think it needs to be understood—the physical mechanics of its overlapping time-travel narrative (who did what, and when) aren't nearly as important as the dark and delirious feeling of the main character going insane. Essentially, it's a puzzle film where you're intrigued by the gamer as much as the game. Tone and psychology are given even more emphasis—hell, almost all the emphasis—in this, Carruth's long-awaited second film, which conjures a remarkable atmosphere on consumer-grade equipment and resembles nothing so much as a suburban sci-fi geek's version of Eraserhead, Marienbad, or (gulp) Tree of Life. Formally, it's a triumph, edited with such exactitude and uncanny repetition that a detail has just enough time to register before the story moves on then loops back, leaving you wondering how all the details fit. And how do they all fit? Well, it's something about love, and memory, and god, and life, and growing older, and isolation, and other heady hard-sci-fi ideas. It undoubtedly reaches for more than it delivers, and casting himself as the male lead was an inexpressive mistake on the director's part. But this is such an intriguing and well-crafted film—truly "independent" in a way that few notable Sundance films are these days—that I'll still be turning it over in my mind long after cleaner, neater, tighter films have floated away.

4 out of 5 stars.

**********************
Upstream Color is now available on Netflix Instant.  Watch it late at night, with headphones.