Film
MAR 2025
“You’re so cool, You’re so cool, You’re so cool!”
Where to begin with this masterpiece… While True Romance may not be a traditional psychedelic film, I couldn’t imagine leaving it out of the Funga library. Instead, I’ve chosen to highlight the elements that resonate with the psychedelic experience – its dreamlike storytelling, heightened emotions and striking visuals.
Released in 1993, True Romance is a romantic neo-noir directed by Tony Scott, scored by Hans Zimmer and written by none other than Quentin Tarantino. At its core, it’s a fairy tale wrapped in a blood-soaked crime cape. The love story between Clarence (Christian Slater) and Alabama (Patricia Arquette) unfolds with an intensity that feels more like fate than coincidence. Their connection is instant, electric and transcendent – a bond so deep it seems to exist beyond the limits of reality. Psychedelic experiences often dissolve the ego and create an overwhelming sense of oneness and purpose. Clarence and Alabama’s love operates in a similar way: they see each other as soulmates in a cosmic journey, making choices that defy logic but feel spiritually inevitable.
I would argue it’s one of the greatest love stories ever told, and without a doubt, it features one of the most unforgettable love scenes of all time.
Clarence and Alabama navigate a chaotic world of gangsters, pimps and Hollywood lowlifes, but they do so with a kind of blissful detachment, as if they are characters in their own myth. By the film’s bloody climax, Clarence is seemingly killed, only to miraculously awaken – reborn into a new life, escaping with Alabama to a paradise beach in Mexico – one I know only too well. This arc mirrors the psychedelic journey: descent into chaos, confrontation with mortality and emergence into enlightenment.
Like the best trips, it is a film that exists on multiple planes that blends euphoria with darkness, chaos with beauty, violence with transcendence. Clarence and Alabama’s journey is less about survival and more about surrender. It teaches us to let go of fear, embrace the unknown and believe that love can reshape our existence. And in that sense, it may just be one of the most psychedelic films ever made.
