Beyond the Black Rainbow
Long before the mystery at the center of Beyond the Black Rainbow is revealed, the film first invites you to suss out the meanings behind its utterly striking imagery, and its spare, dread-inducing score. The 2010 film from director Panos Cosmatos tells the story of Barry Nyle (Michael Rogers), a research lead at an organization that studies the metaphysical, who spends his days toiling at a facility where a young psychic named Elena (Eva Allan) is being held prisoner. No matter how hard Barry pushes Elena to open up to him, the girl’s resolute in her physical silence, and only communicates her one desire—to be reunited with her father—telepathically.
Beyond the Black Rainbow’s powerful use of color and disturbing imagery to set the sickly, twisted tone that shapes its story evokes Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey and Jonathan Glazer’s cinematic adaptation of Under the Skin from 2013. The film creates a sense of claustrophobia that heightens as Barry’s sinister fixation with Elena grows stronger, and by the final scene, Beyond the Black Rainbow will leave your skin crawling as if you, too, were fighting for your life to escape a madman’s prison.
