THE WIND OF AYAHUASCA (1983) – Blu-ray Review

Fascinating Docufiction from 1980s Peru Emerges from Obscurity

DIRECTED BY NORA DE IZCUE/SPANISH/1983

BLU-RAY STREET DATE: MARCH 26, 2024/KINO LORBER

The fourth entry in a mini-series reviewing recent home video releases from less familiar international cinema scenes is the oldest of the lot. Originally released in Peru back in 1983, The Wind of Ayahuasca brings viewers into a narrative portrayal of cultural conflict within that South American nation. The story involves Miguel, a sociologist from the Peruvian capital Lima, a coastal city, who’s conducting academic research on the culture and economy of Iquitos, a city located on the banks of the Amazon River, deep in the jungle interior. The course of Miguel’s studies brings him into contact with Nexy, a young local woman toward whom he begins to feel a strong attraction. Though she’s wary of the interest shown to her by this Westernized outsider, they begin to develop a more intimate relationship until she suddenly goes missing one night. Perplexed and shaken by her disappearance, Miguel enlists the support of a curandero who uses ayahuasca as a guide to resolve the mystery of what happened to Nexy. As anyone remotely familiar with the consciousness-altering properties of ayahuasca would imagine, Miguel’s participation in the ritual has ripple effects far beyond simply pointing him in the direction of his missing girlfriend.

That simple premise provides the basic set-up for several different types of movies that could have been made, so let me state right up front that anyone watching this with the expectation that they’re about to see Fear and Loathing in the Amazon Rainforest or Enter the Peruvian Void will be quite disappointed. Though there are scenes that clearly have the intention of depicting hallucinatory imagery, the special effects technology is limited both by budget and directorial intent, which is to focus more on the psychological and existential effects of the ayahuasca ceremony than on the flashy visual distortions that are nowadays frequently produced with uncanny verisimilitude using digital software. This is a movie from 1983, after all, one that was entirely shot and funded in Peru, decades before the ayahuasca-based spiritual tourism industry now associated with Iquitos became a thing.

The film has a female director, Nora de Izcue, primarily known as a documentarian whose subject matter typically involves social justice themes, and this project originally began as a simple effort to capture an authentic curandero-led ayahuasca ceremony on film. A fictionalized narrative began to develop, a cast of mostly non-professional actors was assembled, and it all led to the creation of this remarkable film, one nearly lost except for the discovery of a single print that for better or worse has burned in English-language subtitles that remain in the HD restoration presented on the Blu-ray. de Izcue, who’s still with us at age 90, provides an informative and heartwarming account of her experiences making the film (and seeing it reemerge from obscurity four decades after its creation) in a video interview included with the disc.

In the video below, I made a significant error in presuming the director’s youth when she made a short film that eventually led to her making this feature, stating that she was “in her twenties” when in fact she did not even begin making movies until she was in her early thirties and a mother of four. She was in fact around 50 years old when she shot The Wind of Ayahuasca. I’ve also given the film a second watch since I made the clip, which boosted my enthusiasm and enhanced my appreciation for what the film accomplished – so I wanted to clear all that up right here!