Upstream Color 

What makes upstream colour a nonlinear film? Use Rombes' piece 'Nonlinear' and specific examples from the film to help you flesh out your response. 

         Unlike the majority of blockbuster films, upstream color searches to connect the audience through different sensory outlets. This movie goes beyond the power of language and communicates through brilliant editing and other audiovisual cues. What makes this movie to intriguing and unique is it’s power to relax the audience’s mind and simply go along with the plot. I simply let myself amerce in the hunting plot, and what this did was give myself room to understand better the sort of vastness of existence in our inner nature that is portrayed in the movie. The only way I could really enjoy this film was to let the plot happen indulge myself in the details and the subtle beauty.  This resulted in my understanding of the symbolism rather than searching for the understanding of what was actually happening on the screen.

            This film is non linear not only because of the way it was edited as Rombes piece seemed to imply but every single medium utilized seemed to be non-linear making it more difficult for some to understand and follow, however in my opinion this was what drove the piece. The muted images, melancholic soundtrack and sporadic flashes of images developed the plot in a poetic dreamy flow. Rhome’s passage of Non-linear editing mentioned that this concept was  “Written on the cusp of the digital and Internet revolution, Nonlinear captures the chaos of the times” (Rombes, p.73). I think that this movies does just this, it delves deeper into modern relationships, how humans connect and how often it seems like it is controlled by some inexplicable force. To me this lack of glue or cohesiveness made total sense of the chaos of love. I cannot be certain that was the intent of the movie but I am sure that everyone has a different interpretation of the meaning behind the nonlinear editing and overall plot.

            Furthermore I think that this movies goes deeper into who you think you really are, when you are stripped of your current identity.  The worms are just a sort of universal symbol of anything that could strip you of your identity, in my opinion it could have been anything; a drug a natural disaster or anything of the sort. It explores the concept of feeling lost dazed and trying to reassemble the pieces. The actress that played Kris captured this beautifully through her body language and facial expressions.

           So many of my classmates would question the movies asking 'what was the point of this movie', and to me the purpose was for you to make your own interpretation of the symbolism. The purpose was for the audience to potentially revisit it and take a beat to reflect upon the thematic of the overall movie.

Sources:
Rombes, Nicholas. Cinema in the Digital Age. London: Wallflower Press, 2009.