Black Rainbow

Are you? Kidding aside and I have to say the summary line another reviewer used made me chuckle - "too preachy" - which is a nice joke even if not entirely to the point of the movie. Or missing the points of the movie. That doesn't matter though if you can engage in this otherworldly feel the movie gives you and dives into.

Patricia Arquette is quite mesmerizing ... Robard is an amazing actor anyway. But they have certain scene, where some may feel confused. And they are there for a reason. I don't think one time viewing is enough to actually get everything the movie dishes out and serves us. I am sincerely surprised I never had heard about this until a really well restorated Blu Ray was released in the UK. I'm glad they did that, even if the movie may never reach a wide audience. But if you are into movies that are hard to predict (yes the overall outcome is clear from the start, since we then delve into flashback), but there is way more than meets the eye ... or camera lense for that matter! Watch and enjoy ... and maybe even understand! You better believe that ;)

Black Rainbow is like most of Mike Hodges films: Get Carter, Croupier and Terminal Man, very intelligent. It is great performance by

Rosanna Arquette best ever. Also Jason Robards and Tom Hulce are also good.

I doesn't rely on special effects to tell a story. It is more or less dealing with whether or not (Martha Travis) Rosanna Arquette is telling the truth. What I found interesting is how Hodges creates a psychological atmosphere on what would happen if someone with that psychic power tells you somebody close to you is dead. That is more disturbing than any special effect.

It is a shame Black Rainbow didn't get a proper cinema release. According to Mike Hodges on the DVD commentary of Black Rainbow, both the distributors Palace Pictures (UK) & Miramax (USA) were both suffering financially. Palace Pictures only released the in minimum cinemas, because they were on the verge of getting bankrupt. Miramax decided to release it straight to television.

My opinion is this is great film and should get a chance, any interested in this film, its out on DVD on Anchor Bay on Region 2

The script is filled with a series of chilling twists which Hodges plays with an absolute and certain confidence - the eeriness as Arquette's first vision starts to come, and her agitation and attempts to cover as what she is performing turns to real; the second vision where she reels off a list of names of the dead trying to contact the living and said people still alive in the audience start standing up puzzled. Hodges' depiction of a seedy con-job slowly becoming darker is beautifully written. The imagery as Arquette's vistas of heavenly meadows and tranquil afterlife cliches start to change into impressions of cancers, empty lives and of people suffering is a stunning and powerful one. The final soliloquy Arquette gives, coming out to taunt the audience - how they want there to be an afterlife so they can confirm their own lives, how if there wasn't an afterlife and what they had was all that they were given, then wouldn't that make her a fake ? - is superbly written and utterly rivetting in delivery. Arquette's performance in the film is exceptional.

This is not a film everyone would enjoy. It takes a poke at an old and established con game -- for want of a more precise term, fake mediumship -- and then stands it on its head.

Spoilers follow.

Before an audience in a mining town, Arquette's character tells various audience members of their losses, while the victims are still alive! She's proved to be wrong, and then, later, the persons die in the manner she describes. This happens more than once. Had she been a local lady, she might have been a murder suspect, or possibly hanged as a witch.

The story builds slowly, and each incident just throws another log on the fire, making the atmosphere murkier and more mysterious. The film opens ambiguously and ends the same way.

As noted before, not for every taste. But for those with the appropriate taste buds, the taste of this is rich and flavorful.

"Black Rainbow" is an uncategorizable film: an unusual and ambitious mix of such different genres as metaphysical horror, corruption/conspiracy thriller, family drama, even a backstage look at the way evangelist/medium "shows" are set up. The mix doesn't always work (the ending, for example, is not consistent with some of the previous events), but the movie is still definitely worth seeing. There are at least two or three brilliant scenes (the most notable of which is, arguably, the way Hodges "films" an explosion without actually showing it), and Rosanna Arquette gives an impressive performance. (***)