Short Synopsis
In search of personal healing and artistic inspiration, Marina Abramovic travels through Brazil experiencing sacred rituals and exploring limits between art, immateriality and consciousness. How far will she go to create her work of art?
- Marina Abramovic Film Brazil
- Marina Abramovic Movie Brazil Bolsonaro
- Marina Abramovic Website
- Marina Abramovic Work
Marina Abramovic travels through Brazil in search of the spiritual forces of nature that are embedded in the culture of native Brazilians. Through communing. Marina Abramovic; via Sean Kelly Gallery/(ARS), New York Ms. Abramovic said she was most hurt by how the conspiracy theorists took images from her work and twisted the meaning to bolster their case.
Long Synopsis
Marina Abramović travels through Brazil, in search of personal healing and artistic inspiration, experiencing sacred rituals and revealing her creative process. The route is comprised of poignant encounters with healers and sages from the Brazilian countryside, exploring the limits between art and spirituality. The film features healing sessions with the medium John of God in Abadiania, herb healers in Chapada dos Veadeiros, spiritual rituals at Vale do Amanhecer in Brasilia, the strength of religious syncretism in Bahia, ayahuasca in Chapada Diamantina, shamanic processes in Curitiba and energy of crystals in Minas Gerais. This external trip triggers in Marina a profound introspective journey through memories, pain and past experiences. A mixture between road movie and spiritual thriller, the documentary brings an unprecedented approach of the intimate
Marina Abramovic Film Brazil
Brazil with your eyes closed: the world-famous Serbian artist charts the healing rituals of largest country in Latin America; she uses unorthodox remedies and meditation as she seeks a cure for the malaises of the body and the mindMarina Abramovic takes a trip through the melting pot of Brazilian religions, faiths, cults and mysticism. She travels to remote corners of the country and deeply engages with very obscure and unusual rituals. Despite speaking very little Portuguese, Marina looks very much at home and blends in extremely well. She opens the film saying: “Shaman Denise told me that I don’t come from anywhere”, which might explain why she’s so easily adaptable. “We are all galactic”, she completes. The timing of the film premiere in London is very ironic: her ideas wouldn’t fit in very well with Theresa May’s toxic “citizen of nowhere” remarks last week.
The artist is keen to push both mental and physical limits. She visits an evangelical group that promotes healing through medical practices of highly questinable medical efficacy. The preachers perform cure through pain and faith, and methods include scratching the blade of a knife on a man’s eye, or making an incision in the belly of a standing woman, sticking two fingers inside, twisting them and then stitching the wound – all clearly documented with the camera. Marina does not slam the procedures, instead focusing on the their meditative powers, often dismissed by science and intellectuals as charlatanism.
Marina’s supple spirituality respectfully morphs and adapts into the various environments she visits. She is more than an enthusiastic observer, and instead she deep dives into some of the most powerful rituals, including a mud and herbal cleansing in the nude in a forest near Curitiba, in the South of Brazil. She also tries the hallucinogenic drug Ayahuasca twice, and takes a dangerous and scary trip into the unknown. She vomits, urinates, defecates, writhes and rolls on the floor, as do most people who experiment with the drug. The Peruvian film Icaros: A Vision (Leonor Caraballo/ Matteo Norzi, 2016) also provides some very useful insight into the use of ayahuasca in other parts of South America – click here in order to read or review.
Marina Abramovic Movie Brazil Bolsonaro
The city of Salvador is perhaps Marina’s most important destination. There she meets a 110-year-old mãe-de-santo (a priestess of Candomblé), who explains to her the secret of longevity. She tries the local food and learns about the connection between what you ingest, your energy and your “horniness”. She also visits the Catholic Bonfim Church. She likes to pick up elements of spirituality in religion, but tends to dismiss the religious establishment as a whole.
Marina is so energetic and dynamic that at times it feels like she is both behind and in front of the camera, while in reality the film was directed by Brazilian filmmaker Marco Del Fiol. The relatively unknown helmer captures some impressive images where Marina interacts with nature in a meditative state, in a waterfall, in the top of a mountain, in the tropical savannah (cerrado) and in leafy forests in Southern Brazil.
Marina Abramovic Website
The film ends with an altruistic gesture. Marina returns what Brazil gave to her by offering a performance in the city of São Paulo. Cities and noisy and polluted, and therefore people need art in order to get by, she expĺains the rationale behind her gift. For her, nature is complete, and so art is redundant in environment such as the forest and savannah.
Marina Abramovic Work
Space in Between – Marina Abramovic in Brazil showed as part of the BFI London Film Festival in October. You can purchase it for VoD by clicking here.
Below is the film trailer:
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