The Last Shaman (2017)

The Last Shaman is the kind of documentary that doesn’t just inform you—it sits beside you in the dark and insists on telling the truth. Following a young man’s desperate, time-limited search for relief in the Amazon, it becomes a fascinating, often unsettling window into ayahuasca and the fragile, hard-won possibility of hope. The filmmaking is quietly beautiful, letting the rainforest and the faces in it carry a weight that words can’t, while staying honest about depression without turning it into either spectacle or easy inspiration. It’s not for everyone—especially if you’re uneasy with intense emotional territory or spiritual medicine—but if you want something important that lingers, this one earns your attention.

The Last Shaman clearly wants to be an intimate, life-or-death journey about depression, hope, and the allure of spiritual healing in the Amazon. The problem is it often feels more like a slickly stylized mood piece than a grounded documentary, with hazy storytelling and a tone that can come off overblown or even a bit phony. If you’re looking for a rigorous, critically examined look at mental health and psychedelic tourism, or you need a protagonist you can easily empathize with, this may test your patience. Still, the scenery and raw premise can be compelling, and viewers who respond to experiential, impressionistic docs might find something to sit with—even if it doesn’t fully earn its big claims.