Director Report Card: Alejandro Jodorowsky (2020)

9. Psychomagic, a Healing Art

Alejandro Jodorowsky is a multi-hyphenated talent. In addition to film-making and acting, he's performed as a mime, a clown, a performance artist, and written many comics and novels. He is also a self-styled mystic and guru. He's studied and written extensively about Tarot. Since the sixties, he's presided over many classes, lectures, and conferences on therapeutic and philosophical topics. Jodorowsky would create his own form of therapy called psychomagic. Having written several books on the subject over the decades, in 2019, Jodorowsky would make a  documentary on the topic. “Psychomagic, a Healing Art,”  the director's ninth feature film, would debut on streaming services earlier this year. 

So what, exactly, is psychomagic? It is, essentially, performance art as psychotherapy. Like Freudian psychoanalysis, Jodorowsky believes that our current problems in life are rooted in trauma we experienced in our childhood. His unique therapy posits that various physical acts function as expressions of these unconscious feelings and desires, providing the catharsis necessary to move past these traumas. In “Psychomagic, a Healing Art” we see a number of Jodorowsky's various patients act out the keys to their own traumatic experiences, as designed by the director. 

If you're a fan of Alejandro Jodorowsky's movies, you probably have a certain degree of tolerance towards touchy-feely, New Age-style philosophizing. There's a difference between seeing some of these ideas acted out in movies, via the outrageous surrealism that the filmmaker usually employs, versus seeing people treat this kind of thing as a serious form of therapy. After sitting through “Psychomagic” I think it's fair to say that many of the mystical ideas Jodorowsky put forward are either non-extraordinary or complete nonsense. The most healing part of “psychomagic,” as a therapy, seems to be the most healing part of any therapy: Just being able to talk about your problems with a sympathetic ear. You really can't undersell the value of having someone who's willing to listen, to provide uncritical advice. To give you a hug when you're upset or cry with you when you really need it. 

There are times, I think, when the therapy put forward in “Psychomagic” even strike me as potential unhealthy. Like invariably all New Age treatments, psychomagic is presented as a cure for cancer. We see a woman recovering from larynx cancer go up on stage during one of Jodorowsky's symposiums. He instructs everyone in attendance to project their “energy” towards her. Naturally, we have an interview with this same woman, filmed a decade later, talking about how she's still alive. Never mind that's not how energy works or that the woman acknowledges this was simply one of many treatments she received. 

In the first scene, Jodorowsky explains a big difference between psychomagic and traditional psychotherapy. In traditional psychotherapy, a therapist touching a patient in any way is discouraged. In psychomagic, physical contact between the two is highly encouraged. Which is, ya know, pretty uncomfortable. As depicted in this documentary, psychomagic seems to involve a lot of nudity. Which is fine, if the person is comfortable with that, I guess. Yet a scene where Alejandro grabs a guy's testicles in a church and attempts to channel his own masculine energy into the other man's scrotum seems... Ill-advised. I don't think there's much therapeutic benefit to letting a 90 year old surrealist touch your balls and yell at them.  

“Psychomagic,” the movie, doesn't even do a very good job of making us understand how psychomagic, the therapy, is suppose to work. It's not until over halfway through the film that Jodorowsky actually explains the logic behind this process, describing how these acts of performance art are meant to trigger certain unconscious responses. Probably should've opened with that, Alejandro. This is not the only structural flaw in the documentary. For almost all of its run time, “Psychomagic” follows a very clear pattern. In interviews, Jodorowsky's various patients discuss their deep-rooted trauma in interviews. We then see them perform some bizarre act that is suppose to help heal them. There's then a second interview, from months later, that explain how much they've improved. The movie repeats this about a dozen time, causing its 104 minute run time to truly drag by.

The most interesting thing about “Psychomagic” has to be the weird “therapies” he designs for various people. Some of the film's antics are techniques I've seen in various New Age circles before. A woman who feels like she never connected with her mother re-enacts the birthing process. An Australian guy who resents his family puts photos of his parents and sister on pumpkins before smashing them. Jodorowsky encourages women to paint self-portraits with their menstrual blood, as a way to get more in touch with their own femininity. Carrying on the theme of casual nudity all throughout this documentary, Jodorowsky's camera has to show us this process too. One woman, a celloist, takes this therapy even further and discusses covering the back of her cello with her period blood over the course of several months.

This is not even the weirdest, grossest idea Jodorowsky prescribes. A man, a victim of child abuse, is buried alive in animal guts, vultures then feeding on the entrails. Afterwards, the director cleans the guy off with milk. An arguing couple, both with deep rooted affection issues, are forced to walk around with chains on their ankles. Afterwards, they bury the chains together. A woman, whose longtime boyfriend committed suicide, entombs the wedding dress she was meant to wear before parachuting out of an airplane. A man with a stutter dresses up as a kid, assumes a childish persona, and is taken to Euro-Disneyland. This is before the ball-squeezing incident, which is followed by Alejandro painting the guy gold and having him walk around town. 

I don't think this stuff is any more-or-less effective than any traditional forms of therapy. It seems to help the people in the movie, or at least that's how the interviews are cut together. Some of Jodorowsky's antics seem especially inspired. An agoraphobic and depressed woman in her eighties, who feels like she hasn't accomplished anything in her life, is told to water a near-by tree every day, linking her with something alive. The film's final image is a Day of the Dead parade, where hundreds of Mexicans come together to sing and honor those killed in the drug wars. Do I think this is an instantly healing act of mass magic? No. But it's a nice gesture and I can see how that might help some people feel better.

Listen, I like Alejandro Jodorowsky as a filmmaker. Speaking as someone with a low tolerance for New Age bullshit, I'm actually willing to swallow way more of his self-serving guru act than you'd probably expect. “Psychomagic” is most interesting when it focuses on the director himself, showing how his therapeutic beliefs have trickled into his movies over the years. I suspect that the people in “Psychomagic” probably do feel like these merry acts of surrealism do help them with their problems. I don't think it's especially legitimate as a form of therapy. More than any of that, “Psychomagic” is kind of a boring movie. Once you've seen one of its tricks, you've seen them all. I always welcome a new film from the shamanistic cult filmmaker but this was disappointing. [Grade: C-]