When we call something “Cronenbergian” we’re usually
referring to body horror. But there’s another aesthetic I associate with
Cronenberg, at least his early flicks: a fascination with the place where
science, (or at least pseudo-science) and the fringey counterculture mindset
intersect. We might call it “hippie science”, this image of New Age ideologies
and crackpot fringe theories being taken seriously enough to merit study in well-funded,
superficially respectable institutes. It had its heyday right when Cronenberg
was first making a name for himself as a filmmaker, and it pops up repeatedly
in most of his early work. I don’t know if there were ever actually private
institutions devoted to studying “Psycho-plasmics” or Cathode Ray Missions for
allowing homeless people access to media signals, but this kind of thing was
everywhere in pop culture for a while; it’s actually become part of our
collective memory of the era, typified most memorably in
Lost’s Dharma initiative with its synth music-backed videos
and straight-faced statements about the betterment of humanity. Despite the
memorably era-specific coat of paint, though, it’s really just a front for our
old pal Meddling In God’s Domain.
The Arboria Institute of Beyond the Black
Rainbow may as well be the Dharma Institute under another name. The
movie even begins with a similarly trippy propaganda video filled with bold
proclamations on the part of its founder, “Mercurio Arboria” (I’m guessing
that’s not the name he was born with). Dr. Arboria (Scott Hylands) is,
predictably enough, a pop science guru whose specialty is pharmaceuticals, and
whose institute is devoted to the usual blather about how tripping balls will
usher in the next phase of human consciousness. Back in the 60s he performed
some radical experiments in chemistry on himself and his inner circle,
including his wife and his protégé Barry Nyle (Michael Rogers). The result of
this, or one of the results, was the birth of a child, Helena, who seems to have
superhuman powers. I think Helena
is Mercurio’s daughter, but to be honest it’s a little hard to tell what the
hell is going on in the flashback to 1966 due to heavily blown-out,
high-contrast cinematography.
The rest of the movie, set in 1983, is less
impenetrable visually but still somewhat opaque narratively; we eventually
learn that Dr. Arboria is clinging to a grotesque parody of life somewhere in
an inner chamber while Nyle runs the institute, a job that largely consists of
studying and psycholanalyzing the imprisoned Helena (the strikingly elfin Eva Allen). Unfortunately,
in the proud tradition of movie psychiatrists everywhere, Nyle’s kind of a
dick…well, no, actually, “kind of a dick” is putting it mildly, though we don’t understand
how mildly until the movie’s most of the way to act three.
Beyond The Black Rainbow is not
for everyone. It’s way too languid and artsy for people who prefer mainstream
thrills and chills, and while ultimately a horror film it’s not in a hurry to
announce itself as such. Of course, the movie also makes no bones about being a
head film, starting with the title, so hopefully anyone who stumbles across it
on Netflix will enter into it with the proper expectation that it’s a sensory
experience first and a narrative second. The lush colours and warbly ambient
soundscape are carefully constructed to draw you in in a way few movies bother
with these days; Kubrick is obviously a touchstone, as is Mario Bava. In terms
of mise en scene, though, it leans more to pre-Star Wars 70s SF, hence my
evoking Cronenberg earlier.
What’s most intriguing about the movie to me, though,
is how it uses the genre trappings of the era it’s examining to comment on it
seemingly without even trying. The movie presents a SF re-enactment of the
death of the hippie dream, Hunter S. Thompson’s high water mark embodied in the
shift of pop culture tropes over two decades. Begun with earnest ambition to
make a better world, the Arboria Institute has become a house of horrors, its
gurus detached from humanity, the chemicals meant to enhance lives become a
withering addiction. Even the movie’s structural veer from portentious
thoughtfulness to slasher flick echoes this decline.
Setting out deliberately to make a “cult film” is
usually a bad idea in the same way that a movie intended as “Oscar bait” spells
trouble; you can’t force people to feel a certain way about your film just by
using certain signifiers. But while I won’t claim that you can’t sometimes see
Black Rainbow trying to deliberately weird you out, director
Panos Cosmatos clearly has something to say behind his posturing. It’s
definitely notable that I found this movie worthwhile, even though it’s the
kind of thing I usually find to be a slog.
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