"Upstream Color" closely examines the very idea of sensibility — and identity, memory, perception — as if under a microscope. If that sounds a little obscure, well, the movie is designed as an enigmatic experience, to be absorbed, felt, puzzled over, free-associated about and reconsidered while you're watching it and then for a good while afterwards. (Once you know what the title refers to, you still won't necessarily know what it means.)
The story resists synopsis, and even the bits that can be summarized probably shouldn't be, because "Upstream Color" can't be reduced to a linear narrative. It's not about what does or does not happen to whom and when. It is what it is, as it is, in any given moment.
So. The first thing we see is a plastic trash bag with some paper chains spilling out. A man in a green t-shirt grabs it and deposits it in a dumpster. A boy on a bike watches him. A man (the same one?) uproots some plants in a greenhouse and harvests the squiggling maggot-y worms in the potting soil. He puts a couple of them into medicinal capsules. Mirrors figure conspicuously.
Later (in terms of screen time, at least) something happens to Kris (Amy Seimeitz). The man, identified in the credits only as Thief (Thiago Martins), puts her under a spell. She sees, tastes, feels and does whatever he tells her to, but she can't look at him because he says his head is made of the same substance as the sun. Her mind records entire conversations, and the complete text of Henry David Thoreau's "Walden." Another man, whom the credits call The Sampler (Andrew Sensenig), collects, records and plays sounds and performs synchronous surgery on Kris and a pig, apparently transferring a parasite from one to the other, establishing an indefinable psychic link between them.
Kris encounters Jeff (Carruth) on a train. They connect. Their thoughts get mixed up, which is to say that they're both convinced that some of their memories have been appropriated by the other. Their conversations transpire in several different places at once, or perhaps at different times in the same place. Or different times at once — a mind-boggling concept that the "Primer" also played with. Some orchids growing on tree roots by the edge of a stream change color. More pigs occur. Some association is evinced between them, Kris and other somnambulists. Kris is confused and afraid.
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