More specifically, it seems to locate the roots of the present generation’s addiction to mood-altering drugs in the Baby Boomer’s pursuit of enlightenment through mind-altering hallucinogens.īecause the film delivers so much of its information visually rather than through expository dialogue-a trick more filmmakers should try-the music must be both bold and nonintrusive, gingerly reinforcing the imaginary 1983 milieu without rendering it as novelty.
On repeated viewings, however, all of these fantastical elements begin to push forward certain themes-generally, an older generation preying on a younger one. There’s the suspicious Arboria Institute, straight out of a Cronenberg flick there are red stormtroopers called sentionauts, two doomed heshers, and the coolest Lotus Esprit since The Spy Who Loved Me. There’s a strange doctor treating a young woman who is so sedated she can barely speak and whose long, black hair obscures her face to give her the appearance of a j-horror wraith. On first viewing Beyond the Black Rainbow seems visually arresting yet thematically vacuous: The story crawls, yet (or because) each frame is meticulously composed and shot. And it’s borne out by the film itself, which borrows liberally from the past but proves less specifically referential than, say, any Tarantino flick.
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