Figure 1.--This scene shows Hans, Marie, and Rainbow-maker all lined up in front of the latter's grandfather, fearing punishment. Notice the somewhat sinister expression of Hans. Rainbow-Maker is wearing Lederhosen with his long woolen stockings in this scene.

"The Land Beyond the Rainbow" is highly symbolic and in many places surrealistic. The peasants in a fictional East Germann village theoretically worships Stalin and the collectivist economy in occupied Germany that the Russian dictator tried to enforce. The town is made up almost entirely of rural peasants and farmers who, while praising the regime in absurdly utopian terms, are in fact lazy, shiftless, corrupt, lustful, and cynically hypocritical. Only the children are depicted has having any true idealism and hope and can believe in the essential goodness of human nature and the possibility of future happiness despite the brutality and ugly behavior of their elders. The innocence of the children is contrasted with the brutishness of peasant life, and there are many scenes of cruelty (the slaughtering of pigs, for instance, the chopping off of a chicken's head, the spearing of fish, the flaying of an almost live rabbit, together with innumerable graphic sexual assaults). This film constitutes one of the most radical and graphic attacks on the attempt to Sovietize East Germany, but in doing so uses semi-allegorical techniques such as a crucifixion complete with cross and nails against the background of a giant image of Stalin. The savage irony of the film is assisted effectively by a score drawn mostly from the more idyllic and romantic works of Gustav Mahler. The climax of the film is a major fire set by one of the peasants that symbolizes the crazily destructive effects of Communist ideology and the foolishness of utopian policies that actually result in civic disaster.

Created: 8:35 PM 5/16/2010
Last updated: 8:35 PM 5/16/2010