Alejandro Jodorowsky’s new documentary “Psychomagic, A Healing Art” is an intimate exploration of the visionary director’s theory of trauma therapy. His unique concept of healing uses performance art as a vehicle to counter deep, debilitating psychic suffering with literal ‘acts of confrontation’ in real-world applications.
Arguably one of our last living auteurs, the 91-year-old Alejandro Jodorowsky boasts a filmography that’s deeply steeped in psychedelia. From the nightmarish, hallucinogenic dreamscapes of “El Topo” and “The Holy Mountain” to the more introspective, nostalgic and grounded recent work like “The Dance of Reality,” Jodorowsky’s films lurch through a kaleidoscopic blend of ideas, sounds and images spawned by a troubled and beautiful mind. (I highly recommend “Jodorowsky’s Dune”; watch it and weep for the film that never was.) So it comes as no surprise that the filmmaker’s latest feature, a documentary entitled “Psychomagic: A Healing Art,” is deeply steeped in things like mysticism, the power of the subconscious, and, yes, magic. It also happens to be a touching, retrospective glance at Jodorwosky’s own past, through the prism of his phantasmagoric films.
“Reason needs to be taught to speak the language of dreams,” Jodorowsky says. Throughout the decades, the Maestro’s transcended being a mere “filmmaker,” becoming a messiah of sorts to a plethora of fervent followers. “Psychomagic: A Healing Art” focuses on a few of those admirers, struck with a debilitating affliction — be it psychological or physical — who are eager to try Jodorowsky’s titular, experimental therapy to rid themselves of said afflictions. Psychomagic’s methods are… unconventional, to say the least. Firstly, it involves a lot of touching — like, “grab-you-by-the-testicles-to-imbue-you-with-manliness” type of touching. Secondly — or perhaps it should’ve been first — performance art plays a major role in the healing process. This yields results both empowering and controversial, oddly touching and extremely silly.
Whether it’s more Art or Therapy, I’ll let you decide. A mother paints her son black from head to toe so that he overcomes his fear of darkness by becoming one with it (this has #TwitterControversy written all over it). Jodorowsky buries a suicidal drug addict up to his neck and covers him with chunks of raw meat, for vultures to peck at. A couple walks through a busy city district dragging chains behind them by the ankles. (Quite a few psychomagic “techniques” involve folks striding through the city in a disguise of some sort.) A man smashes pumpkins on the streets of Paris after taping his family’s pictures to them. Women paint self-portraits in their own menstrual blood. An 88-year-old depressed woman struggles to grow up.
What’s most remarkable is how Jodorowsky seems to have exorcised his own demons through film, as he deftly juxtaposes iconic scenes from his movies against the revelatory psychomagic moments that heal the afflicted from their ailments. Whether you buy any of it or not is beyond the point. “Psychomagic: A Healing Art” is a (self) tribute to a great director, an undeniably entertaining and assured doc that also happens to be poetic — if perhaps not as enlightening as it sets out to be. At the very least, it will rid you of boredom for an hour and a half.
Available to stream on Alamo-On-Demand Friday, August 7th
