Within the first ten minutes of viewing “Beyond The Black Rainbow” you may begin to suspect that someone has slipped you some hallucinogens. The movie is a bona fide trip with vivid colors, throbbing pyramids and melting faces interlaced with a pulsating synth score throughout. Rest assured that it is not you; the movie is just pure madness, unless of course you did willfully ingest something. Then I suggest you stop the DVD and put on “Yo Gabba Gabba” or something nice. “Beyond The Black Rainbow” will warp you.
It could be assumed that writer/director Panos Cosmatos watched the last moments of “2001: A Space Odyssey” and “Altered States” and decided to stretch out that cinematic sensibility throughout “Rainbow’s” entire running time. In fact the film looks like Russell meets Kubrick from the late 60’s/early 70’s and sounds like a David Lynch film from the 80’s, as Cosmatos has taken the most deranged aspects from these masters and made something wholly his own. The results are visually stunning, as every frame of “Rainbow” could be hanging from the walls of a modern art gallery.
The problem with this art film is that I have no idea what was going on. It’s a horrible thing to write a review of a movie that you do not understand but I believe in honesty. While I could wax poetic about the paranoid nature of the film and the underlying sexual themes the actual truth is I did not get it. Now maybe we are not supposed to fully understand as the plot is presented as such a secondary element to the visual it is almost an afterthought. All I know is that I just let the film wash over me and by the end I was mesmerized and confused.
This is what I gathered: It is 1983. This is very important for some reason and Cosmatos goes to great length to make “Beyond The Black Rainbow” look and feel like a movie from that time. The film stock is grainy and the large hair piled on top of the actor’s heads is perfect. The Blu-ray even features some scratches in the film and, for a moment, I thought this was another example of a Grindhouse feature that Tarantino/Rodriquez gave us a few years back. Down the halls of a bizarre medical facility owned by the twisted Dr. Arboria (Scott Hylands) we find an ever-sullen girl named Elena (Eva Allen). She sits disconnected from the world as she is interrogated by the ever-sullen Barry Nyle (Michael Rogers).
Now Barry is our creepy villain and he is a menacing figure. Years ago, back in 1966, Barry ventured into a pool of black ooze and something happened. This sequence is made up of what appears to be deleted images from “The Tree of Life”. Barry emerged from the ooze a changed man. Or monster. Or something. So Barry stalks the young Elena, who turns out to have superpowers that can pop a brain, and Dr. Arboria sits hopped up on drugs watching travelogues on his Betamax tape player. All set to the droning sounds of a synthesizer that takes the retro to the next level.
For fans of Gonzo Cinema this is a must own and a mandatory multiple viewer. Cosmatos is a visionary filmmaker who was able to establish a blindingly original signature style with this first feature. The film offers little in the way of answers but leaves you even more unsettled because of it. One fatal flaw occurs at the very end. SPOILER ALERT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
After such an unsettling journey, why does the villain simply slip and fall to his death during the final confrontation?? The film presents nothing but questions yet gives us such a definitive ending that is a cop out.
Bonus Features:
Deleted Special Effect: Ballistic Head Dissolve
Theatrical Trailer