The Shaman & Ayahuasca: Journeys to Sacred Realms

Director Michael Wiese built this travelogue-like documentary around a trip to Peru to learn about ayahuasca, which acts both as a healing medicine and a psychoactive drug (Wiese, who also narrates, mentions that he suffers from some unspecified ailment). Wiese's wife, Geraldine Overton, shoots the photograph stills, while musician/philosopher Alberto Roman translates meetings with author Don José Campos and other Peruvians (though some dialogue bears subtitles). Wiese, Overton, and Roman accompany Campos as he collects the ayahuasca, which he combines with other herbs into a potion. They also find local vendors selling the dried substance, but Campos doubts that it's as potent as the concoction he puts together, adding that ayahuasca has become fashionable in recent years, although it should be part of a ceremony in order to achieve maximum effectiveness. The director and his companions also visit biochemist Julio Arce Hidalgo, and visual artist Pablo Amaringo—the latter claiming that he drank ayahuasca regularly for 10 years while working on his vividly-hued paintings (which look like the work of Henri Rousseau…after an acid trip or three). Though Amaringo (who has since died) eventually gave up ayahuasca, drug-inspired images continued to flow through his mind. As he puts it, "Once you've taken this plant, your mind will be forever deepened." Wiese then chronicles his first experience with ayahuasca, which doesn't seem that different from psilocybin or peyote in that he hallucinates and feels at one with his surroundings. While Wiese's documentary is not without value, there's just not enough contextual information here (such as the cultural and medical history of this supposed magic elixir) to make this more than an optional purchase. Aud: C, P. (K. Fennessy)