Crystal Fairy y el cactus mágico

Gaby Hoffman makes this film. She parades around naked, seemingly in a permanent state of euphoria, extolling the most hippy dippy claptrap philosophies about inner peace and finding yourself since the Swingin' Sixties. When she isn't behaving like a Looney Toon, she can be discovered doodling away in her sketchbook, which is full of oblique drawings. And her armpit hair! I hope that forest of follicles is fake... Otherwise Hoffman must have had to use fertiliser to grow it that thick. I bet the second the movie was complete, those shears were out and moving at a record speed.

She is accompanying Michael Cera and his three rather underdrawn Mexican friends on a quest to find a rare cacti plant, which when liquidised and drunk. is supposed to give you the ultimate high. They plan to imbibe this miracle brew on the beach, under the stars... the setting is everything, right? Cera himself has shades of being a public school boy twit... you can tell by his put-on mannerisms and his laboured talk about drugs he's completely out of his depth. He reminds me of the kid in the video for 'Pretty Fly For A White Guy', in that every scene of him trying to be 'cool' is Cringe City.

The story is simple in structure, has no big surprises along the way and probably could be told in half the length. Yet, there is something oddly endearing about these five young wash-outs... (Not Cera though, he's just annoying) their friendship and journey is enough to keep all but the most impatient viewer glued to the screen. And when Crystal Fairy's tragic past is exposed towards the end, it is a highly effective moment which, in hindsight, explains an awful lot. Can you say 'coping mechanism'? You could, and I suspect you'd be correct. 6/10

This is my opinion. I think this movie is incredibly deep but in a light kind of way, in a way that the viewer learns from it what applies and relevant for him. I think it's honest, a rare thing in movies these days. No clichés, no bullshit. I think it makes you think, makes you feel. It makes you connect with the characters, almost as if you are traveling with them. And what I liked most about this movie is the "twist", when who you think is the main character turns out to be just the scenery for the real deal.

I recommend this a lot to people who are done with the Hollywood industry, who are looking for something real and worth watching, and especially to people who are about to travel, especially to travel alone. I think in some way you will learn a lot.

CRYSTAL FAIRY is a comedy of sorts set in Chile, made in Chile by Chileans but starring American actors. It is pretty unique in that aspect. It feels at times like a foreign film but mostly like one of the many American dramedies of the style that emerged in the last decade and a half. It's hard to shake the whole Michael Cera vibe.

Not that I don't like Michael Cera. He's fun to watch sometimes and a good actor. But this film is what it is and it's not exactly what I wanted it to be. That said, it's still kind of fun and there are some good laughs in here. It's not too long. It's got a sort of thrown-together feel, but in a good way. Looks like they had fun making it. I read that it's based on a true story. Recommend for those looking for something different but not too different.

I am late seeing this flick and I must disagree with a few other reviewers and their take on this very simple yet complex movie.

Once again Sebastián Silva is offering up questions on youth and how youth sees the world around them. Jamie is obviously a self centered person with a limited experience in communicating with others (sort of like the US) (as Jamie is an American) and we can see this in his 'attitude' throughout the story. The other three boys have had to share with others and they try to make the best of their trip to the beach. Jamie, on the other hand insist they do it as planed.

Enter Crystal Fairy into this mix and you already have an altered perception of exactly what they want to do - she is like the drug reduced from the cactus later in the story (she has an altered view of reality). She wants to share everything the three other boys don't seem to mind. Jamie can't tolerate it - he wants none of her.

Crystal mothers them, she wants to know them, the boys are like children to her - yet she is very childlike herself. Jamie suddenly wants to be friends with her but only when he's 'high', after he comes down he's back to his original self. Crystal leaves quietly, Jamie sees her leave and calls her name, Crystal disappears behind a rock.

What is Silva showing us here? Crystal is the personality of many different people, she's giving, caring, willing to accept life on her own and take risks - and being alone isn't easy, she is alone throughout the movie and Jamie thinks she's a phony. Jamie cannot see that he is the phony because in the end Crystal is what Jamie was seeking in the brewed Cactus they drink and even when high he could not accept it.

Hiding behind masks that cover their vulnerability, two Americans in Chile, Jamie (Michael Cera) and Crystal Fairy, a young free-spirited woman (Gaby Hoffmann), spar off against each other in Chilean filmmaker Sebastián Silva's psychedelic comedy Crystal Fairy. The film was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize and won the Directing Award for World Cinema at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival. Jamie's act is one of controlling, overly-aggressive behavior but not quite the "Ugly American," while Crystal's is the opposite but equally phony, a caricature of a "hippie" filled with love for everyone who spouts clichés about chakras and mother earth, walks around her hotel room naked, engages in healing rituals, and chides the others for eating junk food.

It's hard to tell if the director is using her persona as a means of ridiculing these ideas or just showing how inauthentic she is. In any event, Crystal and Jamie's way of being, while it fills a need for them, has costs in sacrificing who they really are. On the surface, the film is a road trip to find a psychedelic substance in the San Pedro cactus plant which, when boiled for twelve hours and ingested, has the properties of mescaline (it has been said that the actors used mescaline while shooting the film). In essence, however, the film is not really about mescaline but about releasing rigid patterns of behavior and discovering new ways of interacting that are more fulfilling.

The film begins at a party where Silva's hand-held camera-work and improvised conversation is established. On a cocaine high, the caustic Jamie invites a partygoer, a girl who calls herself Crystal Fairy to accompany him and his friends on a quest to repeat the spiritual high described in Aldous Huxley's book The Doors of Perception. When Crystal takes him up on the offer the next day (which he has forgotten that he even made), he is dismayed by her annoying behavior, even though his Chilean friends, Champa (Juan Andres Silva) and his two brothers Lel (Jose Miguel Silva) and Pilo (Augustin Silva), seem more tolerant, perhaps because at least one does not understand English. Their trip to the ocean to locate and purchase a piece of the San Pedro cactus from reluctant residents is one of the comic highlights of the film, even though Jamie has to eventually use surreptitious means to acquire it.

Crystal Fairy ends up in a good place even though it is more than a little irritating in getting there. During the trip, Jamie and Crystal talk to each other, but at cross purposes. The results are unpredictable but, suffice it to say, their longing for a spiritual experience does not take the form that Huxley described. Michael Cera's role is out of character from the lovable, nerdy self he has played in earlier movies, but he is terrific in this film, totally natural and very real, as is Hoffmann in her role, both continuing to reveal a new dimension to their character. Ultimately, the group's sharing about their fears and their discovery of how their act no longer serves their purpose in life is more open and honest than anything I've seen in films recently and stays in the memory.