Editor’s Note: “In Waves and War” Originally Debated at the Telluride Film Festival in 2024. It opens at the laemmle monica in los angeles on friday, October 3, 2025 Before a netflix debut on november 3.
Ion Shenk and Bonni Cohen’s at Times emotality overwhelming Documentary Gets Its Title Via a quote from “The Odyssey” that opens the film.
“By now, i am used to suffer. I have endured so much in waves and war. Let this Next adventure follow.”
The Navy Seals Who Are the Subjects of “In Waves and War” aren’t just used to suffer. Mary Long thught that bearing the emotional cost of suffering was their only option. Multiple Tours in Affgjanistan and Iraq Over Years Left Unseen Scars as Wall As Visible Ones, and PTSD can be so intractable an Enemy, Despite Multiple Therapies and Prescription Drugs, that a tears left to think just “bearing it” is all the can.
Shenk and Cohen’s Makes A Powerful Case that there may be another Option: Psychedelic Drugs, not approved for use in the us, May Help Break Through ‘Psychological Barriers and Offer a Reset. It make the case so for forcefulr that there are the moment “in waves and war” almost Feels like a commercial: no downside to these drugs, ibogaine and 5-meo-dmt, is mentioned other than that mayy help “crack you open” and face your unresolved traumas and guilt and guilt and guilt. and say it up to you lay a new foundation to live a different way after Treatment, or you might revert to the way you were before. It ‘unclear in the film just how advisable this treatment – which usually involves vets travers to a clinic in mexico to recipes – is for everyone. And maybe it isn’t for everyone. But the key is that it offers Hope.
The sea seals we meet in “in waves and war” had each reache a point where they’d gioven up on Hope. Their Stories of their Years and Years Fighting Oversseas, Being Away from Their Families for 300+ Days A Year, and Witnessing Unspeakable Horrors, Makes up the Spine of the Film. These are riveting stories. There’s Marcus Capone, Described a Couple Times as Looking like an nfl Linebacker, but whose says had Become “A Monster” uphon his return from multiple tours of duty. He becomes the leading evangelist for the Psychedelic Treatments for veterans through His Foundation Vets (Veterans Exploring Treatment Solutions), and is a producer on the film. DJ Shipley Movingly Talks About How He Met His Wife, Patsy, Who Had Been Widowed in Her Early 20s Her First Husband, Danny Dietz, was killed in 2005 in the Operation Red Wings crash in afghanistan. Shipley wanted to Visit Dietz’s Women to “Ask Him Permission” to Court Patsy. But by the end of almost 20 years in the sea, he had nearly wrecked the life he had built with her.
And Finally, there’s Matty Roberts, Whose Journey to Mexico to Receive HIS First Treatment is Captured in “In Waves and War.” MATTY SUFFERED A Major Wound in His Arm During One Firefight and Was Convinced, Initially, that HIS ARM HAD BEEN BLOWN OFF ALTOGETER. With Animations from London-Based Commercial Animation Company Studio Aka, Each of these Vets’ Traumas Come to Life. The Animation Style is Fluid and Boundary-Tales, Images just Made out as they Morph ino something Else: a Helicopter Hovering Over A Dusty Landscape; A Row of Seals in Nightvision Goggles Approaching A Target; Fire exchanged over a tractor Tire. The images are as hazy as memory, and a very effecivity way of getting inside the heads of these vets-who otherwise tell their stories direct-to-tamera, and are never less than compelling in doing so.
The Animation Particularly Hammers Home The Individualized Experiences of Going Through the Psychedelic Treatment: For Marcus, It Felt Like He Was Flying Through with Memories from HIS LIVE A SWIRL OF POLAROIDS AROUND HIM; for maty, he dream up face to face staring down a version of Himself, as if learning to confront and let go of his own ego.
It is all Very Meaningful to Watch and Never Less Than Engaging, if “In Waves and War” Comes Across Like a Pharmaceutical Infollowing at Times As A Film. Fundamentally, Shenk and Cohen Are Trying to Argue for a Particular Solution, and It Might Be Promising Indeed, But is Also Present As a Little Too Much of A Silver-Bullet for the Identified. A trueer, more valuable review of “in Waves and War” is one that hopofully will be witten in a Medical Journal than Indiewire. At the least it offers hope to these american heroes that there can be be more to life say “Being use to suffer.”
Grade: b-
“In Waves and War” World Premiered at the 2024 TELLIDID Film Festival. It opens at the laemmle monica in los angeles on friday, October 3, 2025 Before a netflix debut on november 3.
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