Rainbow Bridge

To begin, it would be a mistake to approach viewing this film as a "Jimi Hendrix film." As I understand it it began as a documentary about the Rainbow Bridge meditation center. When it was filmed nobody knew Jimi's death was but two months down the road. The film was supposedly bankrolled by the Brotherhood of Eternal Love (qv) -- the loosely knit communal family that first delivered mass quantities of high-quality LSD and Afghan hashish to the western world.

That said, the film could have benefited from some better writing and editing. Still, we are provided a window upon a moment in time and space when a positive vision of what might have been was still alive and progressing. Take the film and appreciate it. There will be no more like it. As strange as it appears at first glance it is valuable historical footage that is like none other. The Hendrix footage is just a bonus -- the icing on the sunshine-frosted cake.

oh, how those criticvs love to rip apart low-budget movies outside the box. In '70, that expression was unknown but the hippie culture was still going strong (though after Altamont, Kent, State, Isle of Wight, and losing Janis Joplin, the surge lost a lot of momentum).

one attractive feature is that viewers cannot make headz or tailz of this film until about the fourth FULL viewing. plus...and this means kudos the creative side: we are never sure if the actors are actors! now, that is acting! and directing! we have our hippie-corporate head liaison visiting the Meditation Center in Maui...just to see how the money is being wasted. Pat Hartley, very sexy in her hippie-tight jeans, makes the trek....she encounters many obstructions of the establishment, on the way.

she falls mesmerized by the true love, peace, contentment - dreal *harmony* she finds. her enthusiasm is then further increase when the man, THE hippie musician icon of the day, Jimi Hendrix arrives to rock out! Hendrix's performance is the centerpiece of the film, but it comes well *into* the proceedings. a great performance.

baby boomers, esp. those a tad too old for Elvis and just young enough for The Beatles, invite yourself to join the peaceniks.

and/or the heart and the mind, a term, antahkarana, in Sanskrit or a yoga. This rather pretentious title for a "cosmic surfing film" features surfing by Mike Hynson, a surfer who's model with low rails resembles a thin Phil Edwards model(Endless Summer fame), and his Maui buddy Les Potts (hashish inside the surfboard) at small Maalea (highlighted by a Greenough inspired inside the tube looking out sequence), a red-hot David Nuuiwha (U.S. Champion) doing sideslips and smooth turns, B.K.(Sunset beach legend), Herbie Fletcher(the guy perpetually arching on the nose off the point at San Onofre), and others filmed upside down and backwards to resemble a drug experience. Surfing is used as a metaphor for "the spirit of 1969" or peak of the counter-culture or drug deluded "revolution" that a few of us experienced. The film explored sexuality, drugs, yoga, aliens from space, music, ecology, nutrition, astrology, and science during an extended "rap" discussion by an ensemble of acid laced hippies, a philosophic young follower of yoga, a obviously deluded earth-mother talking about our "space brothers", and an interesting scientist. Of course, the best rap is by a drunken Jimi Hendrix, which is printed on the inside sleeve of the out of print "Rainbow Bridge" album on Warner-Brothers. You can find it for about $25 on EBAY. The film features "Dolly Dagger" as she arrives in Los Angeles, hitchikes to San Diego airport, down the Pacific Coast Highway through Laguna and San Clemente, past Black's and Swami's, enroute to Hawaii. She has been sent to "inspect" the Rainbow Bridge Meditation Center on Maui to make sure no one is wasting money, which is a laugh. During this trip the film mixes sound and scenery to pull off visual metaphors. For example, you hear a 747 airplane as a seagull takes off from the beach, a dog barking as a drill instructor marches recruits, et. al. Once on Maui, Dolly Dagger gets high, and pops around talking drivel with the other hippies. She is obviously an uneducated moron, and was a famous groupy. If you read a few of the books on Jimi Hendrix, one of them documents in her in detail. She is most famous for her ability to score drugs and sucking the blood from the finger of Mick Jagger. She is also buck-toothed and ugly. How did Hendrix fall in love with her? Anyways, the film climaxes with an outdoor concert by Jimi Hendrix. This is Hendrix at his best, near the end of his days, as Mitch Mitchell slams at the drums along with the lackluster bass of Billy Cox. Despite the absence of Noel Redding; this is the best footage of Hendrix in concert you will ever see. If you are a Hendrix fan, I suggest you fast-forward to the concert. If you want to see the surfing, there isn't much. The film needs to cut everything but the surfing and the concert. The soundtrack album on Warner Brother is worth buying, too.

I felt the need to give my opinion of this film, Rainbow Bridge, as a previous reviewer had left me cold with a rather incredulous review which I felt was a bit harsh, at times downright nasty in judging certain people ("She is obviously an uneducated moron"), shallow ("She is also buck-toothed and ugly") as well as egotistically presumptuous ("How did Hendrix fall in love with her?" which implies an ability to know what is right for other people more so that those people themselves)... This isn't me slamming some other reviewer; I'm simply attempting to provide an open-minded and fair counter balance… In my review you will find no attacks or judgments of other people (maybe criticisms of their attitudes, but nothing personal), or any naive presumptions of wisdom ("a obviously deluded earth-mother..." etc) So what kind of audience will Rainbow Bridge appeal to? Well, it will not be to everyone's taste, that's for sure. The most obvious audience are die-hard Hendrix fans and people who are into surfing films. But if you have an open mind and enjoy quirky 60's films, you might like this too (yeah yeah, I know it was filmed in 1970 and came out in '72, but lets not get pedantic about it ;-) In Rainbow Bridge, the validity of the psychedelic experience as a means of transcending normal human perception is debated. The pros and cons of such a method are discussed, and comparisons made between the effects of psychedelic substances and that of various meditation and yoga practices. The conclusion seems to be that psychedelics can be effective to a point, but are ultimately futile/counter-productive as a method in itself. However, this discussion, and that of extra-terrestrial life is, in my view, an interesting one and one which the late Terrence McKenna would delve into and elaborate on in years to come.

Rainbow Bridge is a product of its time, for sure, but that doesn't make it irrelevant or passé. On the contrary, the ideas expressed and the questions posed about the human condition are timeless, and seem to be re-emerging in relevance today. There is talk of higher life forms/extra-terrestrials/spiritually evolved beings (or whatever term appeals most to your particular frame of reference) that will no-doubt raise a few sneers from those among us who are convinced that we now have our collective finger on the pulse of reality, which is all cut & dry, and now that we know the world is not flat we need not keep our minds open any longer, and that "space people" is a possibility entertained only by a poor mindless/crazy/naïve/deluded few, and that anybody who openly questions these things is obviously in some brainwashed state (the irony!).

Actually, if one were to take an open-minded and entirely rational look at these questions, they may be surprised to find some logical basis for some of these ideas. Concepts that the layperson may find outlandish or even downright crazy, often have some basis in quantum physics, and there are many open-minded scientists out there who refuse to rule out any of this stuff.

But this is a review of a film, not a philosophical/scientific/spiritual debate, so lets move on! The final live footage of The Jimi Hendrix Experience (featuring Billy Cox on bass) is cool, but the sound is marred by strong wind (evident by the big sponges taped around the microphones!). As I say, it's cool, but not essential unless you simply have to have as much Hendrix footage in your collection as possible.

All in all it's a nice, unusual, quirky film featuring some cool footage of Hendrix casually hanging out, as well as performing live. Regarding the more "far-out" aspects of the film, I'll simply leave you with this thought, and let you make up your own mind: Not only is the universe stranger than we imagine, it is stranger than we CAN imagine.

First of all, you have to give credit where its due - the late 60's/early 70's sure was a time when proper leftfield stuff was unleashed in the cinemas. This film now seems a wilfully uncommercial and bizarre effort and I'm pretty sure even back in the day it must have been somewhat oddball. It centres around the people who live at the Hawaii hippy commune called the Rainbow Bridge. But its very difficult to determine what is acting and what is documentary - it seems to be a bit of both, with the emphasis heavily on authentic chat but in effect this is non-actors acting themselves (if that makes any sense). For that reason, this movie improbably is a precursor for the reality TV shows 'The Only Way is Essex', 'Made in Chelsea' and 'Geordie Shore'; but instead of featuring Essex girls, Geordies or toffs talking garbage, this film does the same thing but with hippies talking gibberish, albeit about 40 years earlier! So, you do have to be forgiving of listening to an awful lot of waffle because 80% of the runtime compromises of chat about new age nonsense. After enduring a lot of this interminable - and often barely audible - drivel, Jimi Hendrix pitches up and knocks out a few tunes in an open-air concert populated by our hippy friends. The musical segment, needless to say, is the highlight of the film and unsurprisingly is the angle that the movie poster's homes in on as the chief selling point, made even more pertinent as this turned out to be Hendrix's last live concert, seeing as he unfortunately died two months later.

The upshot is that this remains an oddity which can be cautiously recommended. As a snapshot of the hippy counter-culture, it offers an interesting time-capsule; albeit, it would work better as background viewing, as opposed to sitting down and giving this your full concentration. The Hendrix material is great of course, but it does only constitute maybe 20mins or so of the overall runtime. So, hard going overall but it has its good points.