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Shane Carruth's haunting Upstream Color makes its UK debut at the Sundance London Film Festival this week.

Mysterious in an entirely different way from Carruth's scientifically-minded first feature Primer, the film follows young woman Kris (Amy Seimetz) in the aftermath of a strange attack she does not remember, which nonetheless appears to have altered her on the most basic level.

Digital Spy sat down with director-producer-writer-actor-editor-composer-distributor Carruth to deconstruct Upstream Color's narrative puzzles, and get his take on the film's ambiguous ending.

What was the germ of the idea for Upstream Color?
"The idea I started with was personal identity, and personal narratives; how those things come into being, and what happens if they're disrupted. People sort of have these set beliefs about the world, and what's good and what's evil and what they deserve in life. Once those things are ingrained, they dictate the way you see yourself. So the inception of it was about personal identity and what it looks like if you completely strip that away, and force somebody to rebuild with the wrong tools, or with the wrong information."

The film begins with a very disturbing attack, which is a robbery but plays metaphorically more like a sexual assault. How did you develop that sequence?
"In terms of Kris, the lead character, I knew that I had to make her a raw nerve, to completely strip away her personal narrative. So first off, the thief and what he does is about breaking her down, and making her almost a blank slate.

"As you say, the attack… it is a rape, if not a physical one. I talked about this very specifically with Thiago [Martins], who played the thief, while we were shooting. I was very clear, there is nothing about this that is going to be sexual. He said, 'So I'm in this woman's house, I can make her do anything I say, and I'm going to… go to sleep?' Yes, that's exactly what you do, because you've already won. That scene is about absolute control. It's a violation, but the lack of sexual suggestion in that scene is very intentional."

Did you view the science-fiction elements of what Kris experiences as a metaphor for more everyday trauma?
"I wanted the threat to be something that's embedded where we live, but outside our experience. Kris's experience is universal, it's something that is already in the world. It was very important that it not feel like some foreign, new thing that's coming into the picture."

The relationship that develops between Kris and your character Jeff is very unusual, as film romances go…
"It's a relationship that's being defined by something completely external. On a plot level, their pigs are thrown together, and so these two people are thrown together, and it's that link that defines their behavior. Their being drawn together isn't necessarily something that makes sense at the front of their minds. It's not organic, it's not a relationship that develops in a natural way, but it's nonetheless intoxicating."

Amy Seimetz in 'Upstream Color'

In Primer, you used Aaron as an omniscient narrator to comment on the characters' actions, and at certain points for exposition. Did you consider doing something similar with Upstream Color, to guide the audience?
"No, never. This is a vastly better work than Primer. I always think… to create something veiled, or write something veiled, and then show up and say, 'Here you go, here's the text', that doesn't feel right to me. I think the film has to be revisited and dwelt on. My hope is that in the end, a consensus will form around the one interpretation that makes the most sense, and the only one that I hope really stands up, which is what happened with Primer."

You wrote, directed, produced, shot, edited, scored and starred in both Primer and Upstream Color. In the future, do you want to keep filling all of those roles, or are there any aspects you'd like to turn over to somebody else?
"No, I want to keep doing all of the things that you just said. What I'd like to get rid of is the aspect you didn't mention, which is the secretarial stuff, the admin, the paperwork. I could definitely stand to hand those things over."

The final scene seems to offer some redemption and resolution for Kris, but did you view it as a happy ending?
[This paragraph contains plot spoilers - highlight to read] "Well, she finds a man whom she believes to be responsible for her situation, and in killing him she gets some justice, she breaks the cycle, she frees herself. But it's a much more complicated ending than that, because she doesn't know - and will never know - what we do. We know that it's the Thief who is responsible, not the Sampler. So it's really a hollow victory, and without her even realizing it she's perpetuating a cycle. She's rebuilding her life based on faulty information, so she doesn't necessarily win, even though in terms of the narrative arc that's how it appears.

"From her perspective, she's having a moment of resolution and I wanted Amy to play it as a positive moment. But the audience knows the truth about that victory. It's sort of a horrifying ending, when you think about it."

Upstream Color plays at the Sundance London Film Festival on April 27 and 28, and will be released nationwide later this year.

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