Rainbow Man/ John 3:16 (USA, 1997)

If you’ve ever wondered if television, particularly religious programming or reality TV, could actually brainwash people, well … here’s the proof. Of course, the mind must be ripe for it. A life of loneliness and exclusion can lead to intense feelings of alienation. The more alienated one feels, the more one needs to have an identity and purpose that makes one’s separation from society seem as though they are supposed to be different from everyone else for a reason. That need and sense of heightened reality can become almost pathological when mixed with drugs or TV. Enter Rollen Stewart, a man desperately searching for an identity and a purpose. The identity came via being a TV star. What better way for the world to notice you than by making yourself appear in the background of every sporting event? The way Stewart decided to call attention to himself was by being a clown. Harmless enough. The sense of purpose unfortunately, was sparked by an evangelical TV show decrying the end of the world. The clown persona gradually turned into an angry prophet, who now is in a state prison still waiting for the end of the world. His crime (which you’ll see in the film) was not terribly bad, since no one was hurt. What’s sad is that the man should be in a mental institution instead of a prison. What’s more sad though, is the fact that someone with such sensitivities and audaciousness might have found a healthy path for himself had he not been exposed too much drugs, too much TV and too much negative religion. The documentary is formidable in the way it packs a great deal of thought and energy into a mere 30 minutes. By the end, I kept thinking of “Bowling for Columbine”, where Moore showed how the media (especially the news and reality TV), can create a world that’s extremely vile and threatening. It’s enough to overwhelm anyone into despair!

Included in the DVD are three short films by the same filmmakers, and they are also extremely well-made. The first film focuses on a movie about an all-girl punk band in the early 80s (I saw it a long time ago and remember liking it). The second film is a brief look at a guerilla street theater group in 1969 who attacked patrons of the San Francisco Film Festival with pies (how I wish they’d do that at Sundance!) – a great jazz score on that one. The third film is a very brief but interesting look at passengers on a night train in the sickly, aqua-green glow of a hermetically sealed society. Also, there’s a trailer for “The Weather Underground”, a documentary that I saw last year and is definitely worth renting! I’m very anxious to see what else these guys come up with!

My grade: 8