Beyond the Black Rainbow Movie Review
Beyond the Black Rainbow Movie Review
Directed by Panos Cosmatos, starring Michael Rogers and Eva Allen
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Sort of like a trippy Dharma Initiative, Beyond the Black Rainbow's mind-control experimental hospital laboratory is called the Aboria Institute. Set in an alternate or futuristic early 1980s (plus a long flashback to 1966), research doctor Barry Nyle (Michael Rogers), is fixated on his gifted, telekinetic patient, young Elena (Eva Allen), who will stop at nothing to escape the creepy confines of her cell.
Focusing mainly on the quietly desperate doc and his mostly mum detainee, Beyond the Black Rainbow is long on fevered imagery, swoopy electronica, stark sci-fi settings (alienistic architectural nods to Kubrick, Cronenberg and Tarkovskiy are apparent, as well as any and all Daft Punk rock videos) — but in contrast to the flurry of visuals, the film is frustratingly short on dialogue and story. Using my best guesses, I'm assuming the Aboria Institute, which touts itself as a sanctuary for those in pursuit of happiness, is in fact just the opposite. Why? What for? We are only given vague notions; not enough to grasp onto and allow us to actually care about what happens to Barry or Elena.
There are a couple of ancillary characters — Barry's long-suffering wife, and Barry's ancient, sickly mentor who must be injected between his gnarled up toes with some kind of weird serum in order to stay alive — but mostly, it's about the captor and the captive and their ever-shifting dynamic of control and contradiction.
The cinematography is lovely, perhaps a bit too claustrophobic at times as it hones in and lingers on the iris of an eye or the hangnail on a finger, but augmented by the pulsating, reverberating tunes that kind of thing is forgivable. (The hypnotic score is by newbie composer Jeremy Schmidt, whom I've no doubt we'll be, er, hearing more from.) While it certainly one of the most aggressively arty new features I've seen in awhile, Beyond the Black Rainbow is unfortunately incoherent and largely inert as well.
With his ambitious first flick, writer-director Panos Cosmatos puts it out there and for that, I applaud him. I'm all-aboard when it comes to experimental filmmaking. But I need something to hold onto as I watch the imagery unfurl and listen to the stylish synth. Psychedelic, philosophical, political, plodding and pedantic, Beyond the Black Rainbow provides only fleeting moments of pop between the eerie interludes. For me, that just isn't enough. (I do plan on giving it another chance later on in the comfort of home, but I cannot recommend it for the big screen — and obligatory big bucks ticket purchase.)
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Reviewed by Staci Layne Wilson