I love it when a film tries to break new ground and tell you tale that is new and deliver it with style and edge, this film tries to do this but in my opinion misses the mark, I would still prefer to watch more of these type of efforts than the cloned crap that arrives on our screens each week.
It kicks off with a woman being kidnapped and drugged, a guessing game then begins, the only problem is I was left guessing right til the end, I wont lie, I am still guessing, I did not want the director to lay everything out for me, but this goes in the other direction of not explaining anything fully, with no real love for the main leads it becomes a case of do I care to look into the reason behind the event’s that are not clear on the first viewing.
* Spoiler alert *
If anyone has any answers to the following questions I would be grateful –
Who was the boss of this crime ?
Who actually stole the money, the young chap or the Farmer, or somebody else not featured in the film ?
Why did they fall in love with the pigs in the end ?
The ” Ordeal ” is one of my favourite films, and that was very weird, as well as being weird it also had quirky interesting subjects matched with dead pan humour and dialogue, this movie has the strangeness but fails to bring anything else to keep you involved with the story.
5/10
KO
Movie Dr 
Alright. I saw this in late summer/early fall, so I’m working from memory, some of which is inexact. But, as I remember, here are the answers:
SPOILER ALERT
The boss was the Thief, the young man, who also stole the money. He did so by infecting the victims with a drug, a worm, that he cultivated from the roots of the orchids that grew on the riverbanks. The drug effectively put the victims in an hynoptic state.
The farmer was part of the thief’s scheme, and presumably paid for his services. After the thief took the victims’ money, the farmer lured them to his farm, using his sound devices, whereupon he performed surgery on the victims to remove all of the worms that were infecting them. After removing the worms, the farmer took the victims home and left them to pick up the pieces of their lives, none the wiser what had happened to them.
Then, the farmer deposited the worms he’d taken from the victims’ bodies into his pigs. Therein is why the victims felt connected to the pigs. The pigs were, in a way, part of them, or at least now contained something that had been part of them, disastrously so, once upon a time.
Plus, it was the pigs’ decaying bodies, the ones the farmer threw into the river, that fertilized the soil and created the conditions for the orchids’ growth in the first place.
Upstream Color, then, is about the interconnectedness, the cycle of life.
I really enjoyed this film. It stuck with me and had me thinking about it for ages afterwards
Thank you James, I got lost around the time she struck up a relationship with the guy on the train, I do love a film that makes you think but this went right over my head, I did not help with the fact that the lead was part mute in very dramatic moments and unless I am mistaken the farmer did not utter a word, I can see why certain people have raved about it, I just struggled to grab hold of it. Thanks for the insight.
I can see why it stuck with you Mikey, It left an impression on me, be that a confused one.
I like it a lot (gave it a B+ and called it the best experimental film I’d seen in 2013), but I can see how it wouldn’t speak to everyone. It asks the viewer to do a great deal of work to appreciate (and understand) it.
I look forward to watching this.
Let me know what you think…
I really do like a movie when I can’t predict what is going to happen, and I am fascinated by mind control….but, I found this movie unwatchable. It was unnecessarily vague and fragmented beyond comprehension. I didn’t care enough about any character in it to hang on long enough to decipher it. This was made for a very small audience.
Ha, I am glad you took to the time to watch it Elaine, I agree with you, I found it very hard to watch after the initial 15 minutes, 10/10 for effort but I would give them a 5/10 for result.
You are very generous. I would give it a 1/10. Its somewhat like speaking Hawaiian… only a handful will understand what you say if they are even listening. BTW it got rather high ratings on IMDB which I assumed was cast and crew beefing up the numbers. I have seen brilliant film, and this wasn’t it.