An exercise in duplicity

Cinema: Rainbow Town
Running time: 96 Minutes
Type of film: Science Fiction
Age restriction: Adults only

Reviewed by Prof Joel White
The makers of this film almost succeed in a major act of duplicity. And considering the subject matter of the film, I feel there are two such acts.

On the other hand, I would accept the excuse: “But isn’t that what movies are all about?” 
Yes, there can be no doubt that ruling deception out of movie making would be the death knell of the industry.

In an effort to force this down the throat of its major potential audience the Americans — the setting of this film is given as the one state, Alaska, of which the inhabitants of the other 49 know absolutely nothing. Even as to its location.
Impossible to hide as much as the makers of the film might have wished — the film was actually made in Bulgaria, a country which, to say the least, is not famed for its film making.

Leaping over the many hurdles in its path namely the absence of any scientifically accepted evidence the film asks its audience to accept, as a fact, that aliens from other worlds live, in their millions, among us on Earth.

Having said that, I’ll add that the film’s makers went to great lengths to deny to the viewer his natural scepticism.
The highly effective method they have chosen to do this and the first time I have ever seen this done on film is to present to us the real people to whom these incidents occurred, as well as the movie actors portraying them. And even further there are characters within the film who vehemently exhibit the very scepticism the filmmaker is willing to tackle.

Making the claim that the film’s plot represents an actual case study, the audience is clearly informed of the four ways these other world aliens have chosen to fulfil their ultimate goal, terminating with the physical abduction of millions of earth dwellers.

Causing me a psychologist a smile and a chuckle when I contemplate the hassles these extra terrestrials are inviting; their willingness to introduce into their own world the notably capricious homo sapiens.

Elias Koteas has the role of the scientist whose scepticism mirrors that of the paying audience, which includes that of your Herald reviewer.