Page - 33 - in JRFM - Journal Religion Film Media, Volume 06/01

barricade themselves in their house and hide in a bathtub; we view them from an icon- ic God’s eye shot, their limbs intimately intertwined, a linking of body and soul (fig. 5). The Thief and Sampler are also linked, but via a complex lifecycle: the mysteri- ous blue material comes from the Thief and his plants, is ingested by the worms, enters the human victims, transfers to the pigs via the Sampler, leaks into a nearby creek through the pigs’ deaths, then emerges anew in the blue orchid plants grow- ing nearby; these are harvested by horticulturalists and sold in the Thief’s neigh- borhood. Such circular imagery of death bringing new life – another metaphorical hermeneutical circle? – connotes both Buddhist samsara and Christian resurrection. The true origin of the spiritual sapphire substance remains unclear. In the final act after the bathtub scene, the narrative suddenly increases in both pace and metaphoricity as Kris and Jeff begin to recollect and recover their past identities. In a dreamlike sequence, Kris, Jeff, and the Sampler all sit down at the same table in a barren warehouse-like room, when suddenly Kris makes eye contact with the Sampler – she is now aware of his presence. Face to face with the Other, the Sampler collapses under her gaze. The scene then cuts to a parallel moment at the pig farm as Kris shoots and kills the Sampler – the mind–body problem plays out nar- ratively. Again, how such spiritual teleportation occurs is unexplained, yet that it is concretely happening is certain. Along with other victims, Kris and Jeff turn the farm into a sanctuary for human and pig alike; as a result, no more pigs are drowned and the orchids in the river no longer turn blue. Thus, the Thief is deprived of the worms for his drug and the cycle of trauma is broken. The film closes with a beautiful shot of Kris cradling a piglet, a look of peaceful contentment on both their faces (fig. 6). Upstream Color is rich with not only Ricoeurian signs of metaphoricity, most notably about the experience of trauma, but also humanity’s ultimate concern, Fig. 6: Healing from trauma. Film still, Upstream Color (Shane Carruth, US 2013), © ERBP Film, 01:33:56. 32 | Joel Mayward www.jrfm.eu 2020, 6/1, 17–36