Quick Film Review: Beyond the Black Rainbow

Everyone wants to be happy, and that is the point of this film. You can't always be happy, so sometimes you need a little help from your friends. Sometimes those friends operate the Arboria Institute, an idyllic, serene rehab facility. Its gardens have won many awards.

_{Eva Allan as Elena}

Sometimes a clandestine rehab facility is exactly what you need to be made aware of, with a totally non-creepy commercial opening the film. Patient, doctor. Doctor, patient. Synth-pop with dark overtones. The composition of scenes are like a sequence of stills; and the photographic skills used in intro sequence to the film are incredible.

The mood of film is immediately uncomfortable; and the obsession with detail throughout is excellent. These are the sorts of pictures you see rarely in big-budget films; and it makes me wonder why macro shots aren't used more effectively in more films.

The main setting of the film is the Arboria Institute; where our tale plays out at a meditative pace. A very meditative pace.

The film is limited in its use of dialogue, and uses a combination of imagery and music to tell its story. as a result, the film is evocative and highly speculative. You are left to draw your own conclusions about the relationship between the patient, Elena (Eva Allan); and the doctor responsible for her 'care' Dr Barry Nyle (Michael Rogers).

_{Shaving advertisements have escalated to all new levels.}

There's a brilliant segment where we witness a psychotic drug trip from the good doctor. It is a visual feast, and the sort of thing you would expect to see on the walls of an art gallery as part of a video-art installation. The strangeness, the narrative is eschewed for a sense of atmosphere which is suffocating in its madness and brilliance. Creepy, but incredible. Monochromatic sequences play out the relationships of space, colour and time.

This is very much a film that has been created for the love of film, and not to make money. It is unsettling in parts, due to the fact that it is not what you expect of cinema - it is more closely related to the sort of work that film students dream about producing - and excels at all the basics - visuals, originality, atmosphere, and beauty - it is a beautiful film, but not because of its grand vistas (there are none) but because of the film's devotion to truth.

When I refer to truth, this isn't the sort of truth as defined by something that is not a lie, but rather that things are depicted as they are; without emphasis, or 'dressing', they just are; and that is what makes the film such a delightful struggle to watch, in part due to this incredibly veracity, but also for the slightly unrealistic subject matter, centring around Elena's psychic influence.

_{The doctor will see you now.}

Beyond the Black Rainbow is the sort of film you would describe as avant garde, and is worth a watch if you want to watch speculative, beautifully shot pictures of confronting and unrelenting nature.