Staying true to its abstract and confounding plot, the trailer to Shane Carruth’s love-it-or-don’t-quite-get-it drama is just as much a mystery as the film it is advertising. But, that does not mean it is not mesmerizing.
Filled with sensations and feeling, the trailer for Upstream Color evokes the need to grab onto something, or someone, and look for more stability in your own life. What is so stunning about this courageous piece of advertising is how little it tells us about the story, but that does not decrease the sense of feeling, elation and atmosphere the viewer can get from watching it. There’s a potion-like drink, there is a married couple, there are pigs, there is romance, there are plants, there is a nervous breakdown and there is anger. How do the pieces of this two-minute puzzle fit together within a feature-length film?
The trailer left me wanting to drink in more of the mystery. Although a later viewing would confirm that Shane Carruth is both a genius and maddeningly oblique, the trailers to his loopy sci-fi dramas are intoxicating. Lush, bold and filled with sensory wonders, the trailer for Upstream Color absorbed me as much as it perplexed me. As a representation of the final product, it accomplished everything it should have.