The secrets about unlocking the mysteries of consciousness by plant-drugs. The related chances and risks involved in this shamanism. While filming Blueberry, the Secret Experience, Jan Kounen met the Shipibo healers of the Peruvian Amazon and discovered their sacred plant: Ayahuasca, the spirit vine. Deeply affected by this experience, he decided to return to Peru to shoot a documentary on the plant and the medicinal rites of the shamans. To this end, he filmed the natives but also met neurologists, philosophers, artists, and chemists working on this subject. He notably interviewed Jean Giraud, the illustrator of Blueberry, and Kary Mullis, winner of the 1993 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. More than a traditional documentary, the film is an invitation to travel, a half-open door to another world or another perception of reality. The secrets about unlocking the mysteries of consciousness by plant-drugs. The related chances and risks involved in this shamanism.
Cinematography
Kounen's Blueberry visuals bleeding into documentary reality.
Direction
Director as vulnerable participant, not detached observer.
Director
Jan Kounen
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Shipibo textile patterns are actually believed to be direct recordings of icaros (healing songs) seen during ayahuasca visions—making their art literally psychedelic sheet music.
Jan Kounen allegedly received his own shamanic name during filming, which he has never publicly disclosed—apparently some doors stay closed even in documentary.
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