MovieChat Forums > Upstream Color (2013) Discussion > Some characters and dialogue please?

Some characters and dialogue please?

posted 11 years ago by fatpie42
20 replies | jump to latest

Why did the protagonists in this film have such unnatural ways of acting?

There's a point where one of the characters picks up an axe and I've so little idea of his motivations at that point in the movie, that I half expected him to hack the female protagonist to death. (Heck, he'd only just decided to randomly attack other people at his workplace, so it wouldn't be a complete surprise.)

There's very little dialogue here and most of it is mumbled or delivered unemotionally. We are rarely allowed to be a part of the discussions the characters have, with it often feeling like the protagonists are having an inside joke.

I just really wished that one of the actors in this movie would talk to someone else like a human being. If I'm going to spend 90 minutes following the actions of these people, it would be nice if they at least had a personality...

[–] Makarov-324 11 years ago

Sometimes movies use visuals to tell a story as well as dialogue. The entire scene shows the reason for him flipping out at work and flipping out with the axe. But the characters themselves don't know.

I'm not sure how you can miss the character's motivation during that scene if you were watching the movie.

[–] fatpie42 11 years ago

Sometimes movies use visuals to tell a story, but this one doesn't.

It's pretty easy to miss a character's motivation when there is absolutely no clear indication during the scene. I could make a wild conjecture, but I shouldn't be the one telling the story.

The scene seems to parallel a point where the pig farmer was randomly throwing bits of paper off a bridge earlier in the film. But then again, we aren't told why he did that either.

[–] Makarov-324 11 years ago

The scene with the axe is presented alongside the scene of the sampler throwing the bag of baby pigs into the river. That's pretty clear if you ask me

[–] fatpie42 11 years ago

So why does he flip out at work then?

[–] Makarov-324 11 years ago

Because the pig he's connected to just had its piglets thrown in the river. The visuals are pretty clear on that.

The characters do act pretty strange, I'll give you that. But remember they're in a crazy situation that they can't even describe.

There's definitely a story there and the answers are in the movie, it's actually more straightforward than Primer in my opinion.

[–] fatpie42 11 years ago

You said the piglets weren't thrown into the river until that scene where he cuts down the tree. That's not the same point as when he loses he flips out at work.

"Primer" is very straightforward until around the final 10 minutes. And to my mind, the reason why it becomes hard to understand at that point isn't because of the time travel timeline issues, but because the storytelling is less clear in that stage. The final part of the movie is extremely rushed and it nearly spoilt it.

"Upstream Colour" feels like they took that same dodgy style of storytelling from the end of "Primer" and made use of it across the entire length of the movie - and I really didn't appreciate that.

[–] Makarov-324 11 years ago

You said the piglets weren't thrown into the river until that scene where he cuts down the tree. That's not the same point as when he loses he flips out at work.

Yeah it is... he starts flipping out when the sampler grabs the piglets. You're arguing accuracy with me when you've missed the basics of the movie.

Primer and Upstream Color both have reasons to make the plot unclear, in Primer because they have no idea what happened to the timeline, and in Upstream Color because the main characters have no idea whats going on at all after being hypnotized.

Maybe you don't like that kind of movie, which is fine, but don't try to make it seem like this movie has these plot flaws.

[–] fatpie42 11 years ago

It's difficult to know whether a movie has plot flaws when it is intentionally withholding the plot from the audience.

Normally when people complain about plot flaws they are complaining about elements of the plot which are not revealed properly. The whole thing where they complain that Prometheus doesn't make clear what is going on.

Prometheus had very clear religious themes, so I felt that it set things out in a pretty straightforward way. There's a clear contrast between the aliens who make use of ritual sacrifices to promote new life and the old man building non-living fake lives and begging for a way to selfishly extend his life. In that movie I was more concerned with poor character development and dialogue rather than plot flaws.

I don't know what it was about the "Upstream Colour" plot that allowed you to easily pick up what was happening, but it seems to me to be intentionally obscurantist. I tend to want good storytelling in my movies - and I felt that was missing here.

[–] ivan-208 11 years ago

Just watched this movie and loved it...

The whole part of the Axe etc was at the point the Pig Farmer/Sound recordist split the couple up, which is why he acted out at work in frustration.

[–] fatpie42 11 years ago

I've written up a full review...

I know a lot of people seem to love this film, but I am at a loss as to what they see in it. It's a sci-fi premise, so it ought to be right up my alley. But I have real trouble feeling engaged by a film with absolutely no real character moments. Nobody in this film feels like a real person and there's absolutely nothing fun here to make up for the film's cold inhumanity either. The film is dull, desolate and devoid of anything approaching entertainment.

My full review is here:
fatpie42.livejournal.com/230350.html

[–] TheBeardedWonder 11 years ago

Has anyone EVER read an online review linked from imdb? Didnt think so...

[–] Makarov-324 11 years ago

I would call that a rant rather than a review. You also criticize the movie for things that you yourself missed.

You not only stopped a movie half way through to check out IMDB, but then wrote a review that mentions you pausing to go read IMDB, and then you linked the review to IMDB. So it's no surprise that it reads like its from someone who didn't actually watch the movie.

I would say give it a rewatch and see if it's as bad as you thought it was.

[–] MoviemanCin 9 years ago

You know, the more posts I read about this film the more confused I become.

Schrodinger's cat walks into a bar, and / or doesn't.

[–] martin-sem84 11 years ago

Dialogue in film killed creative approach in editing...so it's refreshing for a change that i don't have to watch bunch of talking heads. :)

[–] Always_Curious 10 years ago

I just took it as they seemed high on a permanent drug-like detached euphoria and also their thoughts were intermixing increasingly (maybe because the pigs were in contact more?) because of the link all the grub infected/manipulated people/pigs had...
Hence why later the gibberish got more strange, when they were saying to each other "no, that's my memory" the Starlings part of the film.

[–] kaream 10 years ago

There's very little dialogue here and most of it is mumbled or delivered unemotionally.

If you have the DVD, it includes Closed Captions (not subtitles, which are different.) Your play setup should have some way of accessing these. For instance if you still use a standalone player attached to a TV, it will be on your TV remote, not the player remote.

[–] emvan 9 years ago

The characters have had their identities destroyed and rebuilt. In many ways, they're barely functional.

You seem to have missed that. If you get that, they're very relatable. Jeff is further along in rebuilding his life, and has many more moments where he talks about himself as an ordinary person would. If you're aware of his past (and there are many clues that he's a fellow victim, something you should at least suspect from the beginning), that puts a whole other layer of interest on everything he does say.

Most of the dialogue that they have is their debate over which one of them actually experienced the things that they both remember. Again, that's highly engaging if you've followed the basic plot, with its sci-fi elements of various forms of psychic connection, and probably a lot less interesting if you're not clear about that.

Prepare your minds for a new scale of physical, scientific values, gentlemen.

[–] GhostRiver 9 years ago

I'm too stupid to step outside of conventional film making--can someone do some over acting and over wrought dialogue, please?! Thanks yous!

[–] GhostRiver 9 years ago

Makarov is correct on all points; fatpie is wrong. That is all, carry-on.

[–] MoviemanCin 9 years ago

Thank you, sir!

Schrodinger's cat walks into a bar, and / or doesn't.