First Full ‘Upstream Color’ Trailer Looks Absolutely Gorgeous

Completely shunning the typical mode of movie marketing where every secret and scene is revealed in the trailer, Shane Carruth has managed to make his follow-up to Primer seem even more mysterious the more he shows of it. Granted, the first teasers looked a bit too faux-poetic to take seriously, but the first full trailer is a wonder to behold.

Even though it shares maddeningly little (you can read a synopsis here), the imagery is stunning, and the selected scenes hint that there’s at least a palm worth of plot to this thing. This may seem like hyperbole, and it might simply be the trailer’s brainwashing talking, but if we praise Malick and Anderson for their abilities to craft this kind of emotional visuals, shouldn’t Carruth’s name be haunting the same halls? Sure, he hasn’t made many films, but if his name weren’t on this (and you knew nothing of it), wouldn’t you have guessed it was Malick’s signature?

Keep that in mind and check it out for yourself:

Upstream Color hits Sundance and the Berlinale before getting a limited release April 5th.

Scott Beggs: Movie stuff at VanityFair, Thrillist, IndieWire, Film School Rejects, and The Broken Projector Podcast@brokenprojector | Writing short stories at Adventitious.