Released as "Renegade" in the US (there's another one called "Renegade" with a kinda similar cover so be sure it's the right one). Released as "Blueberry' (graphics arts origin name)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blueberry_(film)
(see below for the beautiful posters)
The most intricate, emotionally "deep" visualizations of states of heavy psychedelic intoxication ever produced, absolutely STUNNING, in the context of a mysterious story about the confrontation of innocence and evil as well as memory, guilt and redemption... oh and secret Indian sacraments.
PLEASE do NOT pre-watch the psychedelic sequences on YouTube I BEG YOU!!! Not only is the visual quality far too inferior to get the proper effect and all the crucial intricate detail put into them, but this will SPOIL the film for you. It's not terribly great storytelling or acting, but decent, and watched as a whole film, the hallucinogen sequences REALLY are integrated with and integral to the plot, and at the end surprising and deeply moving... watching them beforehand WILL SPOIL KEY PLOT ELEMENTS FOR YOU, and deny you of experiencing the shamanically constructed power that the writer/director poured into this film. It opens with a beautiful sequence where we join an Eagle, the traditional chaperone animal on vision quests, on a stunning flight over desert terrain.
I assiduously avoided ALL contact with these sequences that I know to exist but avoided looking at. I did 25mg of 2C-I (other things would do, but a a dose low enough not to interfere too much with conprehension) and watched it with the lights down and soundtrack over the stereo and WHOA I was deeply affected for days.
I was amazed and not really certain WHAT I had experienced until I watched it again straight except for a little weed, but the first virgin viewing while tripping was a deep powerful experience I will never ever forget, almost as if I was the main character going on the cosmic voyages.
I was not surprised to learn that Jan Kounen actually moved to South America and lived with native shamen there for A YEAR learning about Ayahuasca (though in the film it's confusingly shown to be Peyote, and unidentified smoked mixture, as well as components of Ayahuasca... but that doesn't matter and was probably even deliberate so it would be not about any particular drug but rather about the process of receiving and using shamanic vision-states no matter what the source).
He clearly learned well, so get yourself a copy of this, AVOID pre-viewing ANY of it, do a good dose of whatever, turn out the lights and get ready for a true psychonautical adventure par-extraordinaire!
http://images.moviepostershop.com/renegade-movie-poster-2004-1020251872.jpg
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/a/a4/Blueberryposter.jpg
From Wikipedia:
Blueberry (French: Blueberry: L'expérience secrète) is a 2004 French film directed by Jan Kounen. It is an adaptation of the Franco-Belgian comic book series Blueberry, illustrated by Jean Giraud (better known as Moebius) and scripted by Jean-Michel Charlier. The film starred Vincent Cassel as the title character along with Michael Madsen and Juliette Lewis. Although the film is a French production, the language of the film is in English because the story is set in America's Wild West in the 1870s. Since the character of Blueberry remains obscure in the States, the film was released on DVD in America in November 2004 under the title Renegade and marketed very much as a conventional Western.
U.S Marshal Mike Donovan (Vincent Cassel) (referred to as Broken Nose by the native tribe; unlike in the comic he does not have the nickname Blueberry) has dark memories of the death of his first love. He keeps peace between the Americans and the natives who had temporarily adopted and took care of him. The evil actions of Blount, a "white sorcerer" lead him to confront the villain in the Sacred Mountains, and, through shamanic rituals involving native entheogens, conquer his fears and uncover a suppressed memory he would much rather deny.
Jean Giraud, the famous Franco-Belgian comics creator and the illustrator of the original Blueberry comics, appears in a cameo role in the film, while Geoffrey Lewis, who had appeared in several spaghetti Westerns and his daughter Juliette Lewis play a father and daughter in the movie.
The movie features several elaborate psychedelic 3D computer graphics (fractal) sequences as a means of portraying Blueberry's shamanic experiences from his point of view. Jan Kounen, the director of the film, drew upon his extensive first hand knowledge of ayahuasca rituals in order to design the visuals for these sequences, Kounen having undergone the ceremony at least a hundred times with Shipibo language speakers in Peru. An authentic Shipibo ayahuasca guide appears in the film and performs a sacred chant. In the film, the exact nature of the entheogenic sacramental liquid which Blueberry (and his enemy, Blount) drink remains undisclosed. During the final visionary scene, however, there is a bowl of leaves shown accompanied by a twisting vine which is probably the ayahuasca vine, Banisteriopsis caapi. Historically, Native Americans living in the Southwest United States, would have had no geographic access to ayahuasca.
Peyote is shown growing in the sacred areas throughout the film, and the buttons are prominently displayed at the end, although we cannot be sure what Runi offers to the Marshall either time.
