The Last Shaman

This documentary was extremely important to me. I identify with the protagonist so so much. Although this doesn't cure the existential crisis, it's a beautiful real journey of a young man who took the same steps I would've taken.

Two quotes I saved for my future reference from the movie:

Psychiatrists have no real understanding of how the brain works. Our weapons, tools, therapies are so primitive because of our fundamental lack of understanding of how the brain works. - Nobel laureate Neuroscientist And

I don't think Ayahuasca is to be worshipped. I don't think Ayahuasca gives you anything that you don't already have in yourself. And that was a message given to me from the plant spirits, that I hold the key in myself, to whatever it is I need to do in order to get well.

The message that this world is sending to most of us, that we have to be the best in everything we do, to work hard to get to the top and if we don't succed, we are a failure, puts a tremendous pressure. This pressure can lead to depression, like your brain and your body just wants to shut down from everything around. For me this movie was about finding yourself, your roots, going back to nature, going back to the basic things that metter. Thank you James!

A difficult to watch story of depression seeking help from Peruvian hallucinogens.

A shaman who promotes cockfights is certainly a charlatan, he may even have the gift, but he uses it in a sly and dishonest way, a true shaman would never harm a life, however irrational, poor James Freeman, I pitied him in a fit of anger, I think the only one in the entire documentary, about the pressure exerted by his family, especially his father, for not following the damned behavior patterns of the American dream... Poor James Freeman, I pitied him in a fit of rage, I think the only of every documentary, about the pressure exerted by his family, especially his father, for not following the damn standards of behavior...

Documentary-style film. So a young person gradually sinks into depression, seeing the fast and pressing rhythms of life, really loses the meaning of life, doesn't know what to do. He follows what the doctors suggest, but all treatments are just symptomatic, they don't solve the problem... So he's thinking, if no solution is found, he's going to put an end to this at some point. So he accidentally hears about shamans and some plants in Latin America and decides to leave on his own, to make a journey to salvation. It's quite difficult, of course, to trust someone, since many just look at profit and don't offer a cure. So a long journey until he finds someone who can really help and doesn't look at profit. He will go through some stages that will make him not solve depression at once, but to be able to really start fighting it for the first time. A fairly interesting documentary-style film about depression and all the futility of so-called Western society, which is actually all developed countries. It is not its structure in the style of a normal film, but more a documentary about the journey to salvation. Definitely recommended and it's something different, it won't tire you at all.