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| Images Courtesy of Mongrel Media |
Panos Cosmatos' Beyond the Black Rainbow is a film out of time, a bad acid nightmare that would have been right at home on VHS shelves in the 1980's. An exercise in personal catharsis for the director after losing his parents, Beyond the Black Rainbow is an amalgam of surreal cinematic influences that uses confounding and genuinely gorgeous alien aesthetics to present an unsettling exploration of what lies beyond the limits of the human mind.
Elena is a preternaturally gifted
teenager who is a captive in a scientific prison underneath a new age research
company whose aim is to achieve transcendence through extensive indulgence in
psychotropic narcotics. As her captor's mind gradually slips into pure madness,
Elena harnesses her abilities and attempts a desperate escape into an alternate
reality in which the Cold War's threat of nuclear extinction is but one of many
horrors waiting in the darkness.
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Beyond the Black Rainbow is jigsaw origami. The surface level is relayed through sharp angles and psychedelic colors that present Elena's ordeal as a reverse Alice in Wonderland. Beneath the LSD convolution lies a subversive criticism of the baby boomer generation, presenting the casualness of the demographic as the Black Rainbow, a metaphysical point of no return that mankind had no place crossing in the first place. The theme of personal improvement and evolution pervades throughout the glacial narrative, with Cosmatos presenting strange technology, malignant psychic capabilities, and the bio-mechanical horrors of the defunct Arboria Institute as the yield from foolhardy experimentation fueled by manic obsession.
Norm Li's cinematography is jaw
dropping, using a deluge of colors and framing techniques to give the institute
an otherworldly atmosphere that is simply unforgettable, evoking the
compositions of Kubrick and Argento with skin crawling results. There is a 1966
flashback scene, shot in unfocused black and white is both terrifying and awe
inspiring. Yes, the concession that many aspects of Beyond the Black Rainbow
were taken from other films is undeniable. However, the way that Cosmatos
assembles each nostalgic block into a psionic Jenga is pure, malicious
brilliance. Within a few, precious minutes, you know you are witnessing
something truly different, the type of experimental voodoo that enraptures as
much as it divides, and Beyond the Black Rainbow is a prime example of
one of these poisoned offerings.
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Star Eva Allan conveys Elena's torment as a form of telepathic bipolar, portraying a young woman whose entire life has been experienced through captivity. With only a lonely, unreliable television to keep her company, Elena fixates on the world outside and wishes only to be reunited with her father. Her chemistry with Michael Rogers's Nyles is surprisingly potent, especially during the first therapy scene. Rogers's gives a delirious turn with his villain, presenting Dr. Barry Nyles as the false prophet, a murderous prodigal son who maintains his human status through creepy cosmetics and a barely passable sense of endearment that sits atop a furnace of aberrant rage, epitomizing the film's central theme that not only should man not seek to exceed its karmic limitations, but that success in such endeavors would only lead to a new dimension of unspeakable dilemmas.
Cosmatos's script is filled with
important details that will almost certainly be overlooked during an initial
viewing. Astral communication happens through unplugged telephones, while an
ominous Ronald Reagan monologue enshrouds Elena's predicament. A disturbing
diary contains the profane incantations of a madman and strange automatons,
Sentionauts haunt the corridors of the institute, each of them bearing a
horrifying similarity to Elena's child-like visage. Almost every aspect of the
film has an implied double meaning, electing to use limited dialogue and
overwhelming visuals to construct a haunted house story told from the inside
out.
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Jeremy Schmidt AKA Sinoia Caves's soundtrack is a synthesized love note to Tangerine Dream, one of the many influences on the film. Every song is perfectly applied to a specific segment, enriching the atmospheric occultation with an array of 80's cult melodies. La Vonne Girard's set designs, clearly influenced by Suspiria, present the interior of the institute as a postmodern dungeon, filled with precarious open chambers that offer few places for Elena to hide. Kathi Moore's costume design is devilishly simplistic, using a simple white dress for Elena and presenting Nyles as a shag carpet hold out from the institute's free love origins. The Sentionauts, however, appear as crimson golems who remain suspended in their leather suits until activated, merging the deceptive mundane with the unnatural truths that lurk throughout.
Available now for digital rental, Beyond the Black Rainbow is one of the most unique films of the 21st century. From a distance, this movie is an extreme example of stylistic overkill for what appears to be a straightforward premise. However, if you are patient with the slow burn allegory, the film has a plethora of dark wonders to explore, hidden among an eclectic blend of hallucinatory motifs and surreal horror. If you are interested in a remarkably different, constantly elusive experience, this is a one-of-a-kind viewing experience.
--Kyle Jonathan