Beyond the Black Rainbow in The Georgia Straight

So Adrian Mack's interview with Panos Cosmatos is online now! Pretty fun stretch to get from that particular film to Sylvester Stallone's knife collection - whoever it was that said effective writing begins in places you'd least expect would smile on Herr Mack's craft here. It's a great article, but if you're like me, you'll be left practically screaming, "...WHAT recurring dream?"

 ...because I have this fascination, y'see, with recurring dreams. (See the Norm Li interview, below, to find how one of his dreams had an impact on the film). As a brief aside in my blogging on Beyond the Black Rainbow - I have two more interviews pending that I'm hoping to put up soon, though perhaps not in time for the premiere tomorrow at the Vancity Theatre - let me tell y'all again about my own recurring dream structure. In the dream, I'm travelling to, or have just arrived at, a town. In this town, there is someone I care about or for whom I feel responsible -  a child, a woman, and once - the only time when it was an actual person I knew -  my father, during the last year of his life. This person is in great danger; I don't know how I know this, but I'm very aware of a great menacing evil that is going to descend on them and likely destroy them if I do not find them and protect them. But I can't; I don't know the town, and everyone I ask for help has problems of his or her own that they want to involve me with. Each time, I am moved by their pleas and do help, but am aware as I do that the chances of fulfilling my own mission are growing slimmer and slimmer. Other distractions sometimes surface, as well - like shopping for records and just plain forgetting about what I was supposed to be doing (a telling variant, that). Whatever individual variations the structure brings, in the end, the dream always ends in failure and despair. I'm alone, wandering the town; there is no feeling of hope left in me about finding this person, who is likely already dead or dying, and I am very aware of my failure - though not so acute, since my mind has already begun to move on, to accept, to forget. All I have to come to terms with, to learn to live with, at the end, is that I'm less a man than I'd hoped myself to be. Ah well.

That's where the dream leaves me, every time...