Starring: Michael Rogers, Eva Allan, Scott Hylands, Marilyn
Norry, Rondel Reynoldson
Plot: Despite being under heavy sedation, Elena tries to
make her way out of Arboria, a secluded, quasi-futuristic commune.
My Review and Thoughts:
Beyond the Black Rainbow was brought out in 2010 and is a
truly original and visually powerful Canadian science fiction film. This one of
a kind twisted experience is written and directed by Panos Cosmatos, which is
his first movie and wow what an imagination.
So in the 1960s, Dr. Arboria creates and opens the Arboria
Institute, a New Age facility that researches science and spirituality, trying
to take humans into a new age awakening of happiness. Skip to the 1980's and
Dr. Barry Nyle has taken over, which he use to work for Arboria.
Now what's different about Barry is he seems to be a
charming well stable doctor but what he really is, is a psychopath who is
keeping a young teenage girl prisoner. This young teenage girl has psychic
abilities. Barry has the means to control her powers through a glowing prism
device.
This is a spacey, trippy, almost like smoking weed or
dropping acid, delusions, very artistically sound through the visuals and music
and special-effects, noises, soft tone and emotionless reality through talk.
You know how the final moments in 2001 A Space Odyssey is.
The brilliant masterpiece that it is. That whole weird reality with the baby
and lying in bed as an old man, those freaky moments that no one really
understands. All those moments is like what this whole movie is like. It's that
creepy state with glowing lights, red and blue fluorescents after another.
The visual style rapes your senses and gives an altered
state of consciousness. There is a blue hue and a night time visual
cinematography that truly plays with the viewer. There's a beauty of the movie
Suspiria and most of all Stanley Kubrick bleeds from this movie. This is a film
that not only takes the viewer on a trip of extraordinary means but also
unravels a sadistic plot. It unravels a sadistic doctor-patient reality, a Dr.
Jekyll and Mr. Hyde mentality.
I was thoroughly floored with the creepy state and the
artistic beauty. The visual effects, the mind-numbing music soundtrack is truly
an extraordinary and interesting jigsaw puzzle and it maps out the science
fiction religious state of thinking.
Truly a new age mind trip. It's an artistically beautiful
film and yet also haunting at the same time. It's confusing, it's stressful, and
it’s something that bleeds originality, something that plays along with the
classics such as: Enter the Void by Gasper Noe or even better yet going back to
the 70's with the masterpiece Solaris by Andrei Tarkovsky.
This displays on the themes of control. It uses mechanical
type devices to alter and in prison and control actions and emotions and
altering one's ability. The idea that a religious setting can control the mind
and alter society and human consciousness. Barry is the one calling the shots
creating his own control mechanisms to alter and manipulate Elena's psychic
powers.
I skipped over this movie countless times not really
thinking about it. I've had it in my Netflix list for a long time. It's truly a
shame that I waited so long to view this twisted artistic visually stunning,
disturbing and brilliantly created altered state of reality.
On a comical note this is probably a Scientologist wet
dream. This probably gives Tom Cruise wood.
Artistically brilliant and crafted in a unique way. It's
like watching a piece of art unfold on screen or entering the very recesses of
the mind. Taking a slippery slide trip into the electric impulses of the brain
itself.
The viewer walks down what seems like the creepy state of
illusions, mixing with reality.
A very visual trip into the dark recesses of classic cinema
of the 70's and 80's
Let's all open the third eye and go on a space trip into the
vagina of space, time and the very existence of life.
This is a mind bending journey of clarity of the other side
of thinking. An open mind punching through the closed box of rationality.
Very few films tend to stay with you and let's just say
every bit of this film, every moment, and every minute of this film stays with
you because it's something that has not been done before through a whole
feature film.
Truly psychedelic and massively intoxicating. You cannot
turn away, it's just one of those films you want to watch, just to see where it
leads.
Michael Rogers Who is your main actor and character Dr.
Barry gives a truly stunning performance as a sadistic doctor and an
emotionally disturbed man on the brink of collapse. A brilliant believable
performance.
Truly a stylish piece of cinema art. Freaky eerie and
perfectly awesome. This is not for everyone, many won't get this, many won't
even try to get through it, but if you love the art and visual clarity of the
making of cinema then this is truly entering. This movie uses the lens of the
camera and puts the makeup of imagination on screen. The perfect trip of the
mind on cinema. A nightmare dream state.
Panos Cosmatos gave it his all. His heart and imagination
flowed throughout this film. He directed and wrote and crafted a chilling piece
of cinema that I will not forget. I have become an instant fan of his and this
movie is an instant success inside my Cinema world.
Panos Cosmatos said:
"The whole thing was put together in a
stream-of-consciousness way. I was dealing with the grief and regret of losing
my parents in some strange, abstracted way. I was also looking at the '80s and
what happened to the baby-boomer generation, and its connection to the '60s,
because there is a connection there."
My final thought: I have just been raped in the mind. This
movie is an acid trip. Good lord what an artistic brilliant mind screw. I loved
every wild over the top twisted moment displayed. Brilliant and truly a one of
a kind original and amazing tour-de-force of a film.