‘Upstream Color’ trailer reveals long-awaited ‘Primer’ follow-up

One of the great past Sundance success stories was “Primer,” a mind-bending science-fiction time travel thriller made on a shoestring budget of $7,000 by former engineer Shane Carruth. The film took the top prize at Sundance in 2004 and was nominated for four Independent Spirit Awards the next year after its theatrical release.

Despite many rave reviews and a steadily growing cult audience, Carruth’s long-awaited follow-up feature “Upstream Color” has finally materialized and will debut at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival in January.

So how does a filmmaker follow a film whose twisty plot necessitates a full-color diagram to explain it on its Wikipedia page? With an even stranger film.

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The official Sundance description is a head-scratcher in itself: “A man and woman are drawn together, entangled in the life cycle of an ageless organism. Identity becomes an illusion as they struggle to assemble the loose fragments of wrecked lives.”

The movie’s trailer doesn’t do much more to explain what that means. But it does promise to provide much to discuss, just like “Primer.”

Carruth also co-stars in the film, which will screen in the dramatic competition at Sundance.

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