A gaggle of former US Navy Seals open up about their post-traumatic stress in this absorbing if somewhat formulaic documentary by Jon Shenk and Bonni Cohen. Ultimately, it is something of an advertisement for a new therapeutic protocol that involves the veterans taking the hallucinogens ibogaine (derived from an African shrub) and 5-MeO-DMT (derived, like something out of a William S Burroughs novel, from a river toad); a treatment that, to hear the subjects here describe it, can work miracles on the battle-scarred, suicidal minds of its users. Currently, the treatment is only available at a Mexican clinic because the drugs have not been cleared by the US Food and Drug Administration, but a bunch of boffins connected to Stanford University’s Brain Stimulation Lab are studying its clinical effects and the film works hard to make everything look as legit as possible.
To be clear, we’re not necessarily questioning the drugs’ efficacy, but this particular film seems barely interested in the cognitive science and lets interviews with scientists with interesting glasses and fancy vocabularies stand in as guarantors that it all actually works. More persuasive is the testimony from the half dozen men we meet, who bravely discuss their pain and distress while the cameras roll.
What the former soldiers experienced in the theatre of war, especially in Afghanistan in the early 2000s, has left many feeling like husks of their former selves and bedevilled by constant thoughts of suicide. One soldier testifies that the abuse he experienced as a child, which significantly contributed to his decision to become a soldier in the first place, was an even bigger component of the trauma he carried and something he could only face while under the influence of these psychedelics.
Since few things are duller than watching someone else having an experience on drugs, the film opts to illustrate the trips with tasteful animation featuring images of our subjects spinning in space, surrounded by the memories that assault their senses. At one point, we get to see a soldier’s vision of spending hours on a couch watching the sitcom Malcolm in the Middle, a detail that seems deliciously amusing and against the mostly sombre grain of the film. That solemnity is underscored by the music, which seems mostly comprised of plangent Philip Glass-style chords played on violins repeated ad infinitum, a style of musical shorthand that immediately signals tragic cycles of pain.
• In Waves and War is on Netflix from 3 November.
• In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on freephone 116 123, or email jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie. In the US, you can call or text the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline at 988 or chat at 988lifeline.org. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at befrienders.org
