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Embrace of the Serpent
Tracking two parallel odysseys through the Amazon, this
historical epic from the fiercely talented Colombia filmmaker Ciro
Guerra offers ethno-botanical adventure, mysticism, and a heart-rending
depiction of colonialism laying waste to indigenous culture. In 1909, a
canoe bearing ailing German explorer Theodor Koch-Grünberg (Jan Bijvoet)
arrives at river’s edge, where the young shaman Karamakate (Nilbio
Torres), ostensibly the last member of a decimated tribe, waits warily.
Theodor is searching for an exceedingly rare flower that he believes
could cure him of his fatal illness. Resentful of whites, Karamakate
agrees to help only after Theodor promises to lead him to other
surviving members of his tribe. Their journey takes them through rivers
and jungles ravaged by European interference, climaxing at a mission
where a sadistic Spanish priest lords over a huddle of young indigenous
orphans. Meanwhile, in a parallel narrative set in the same region in
1940, American explorer Richard Evans Schultes (Brionne Davis) conducts
his own search for the elusive flower in the company of an older
Karamakate (Antonio Bolívar) in a landscape brutalized by the rubber
trade. Recalling such visionary films as Jim
Jarmusch’s Dead Man and Werner Herzog’s Aguirre, the Wrath of God,
EMBRACE OF THE SERPENT grips with suspense as it captures a dialogue
between representatives of two worlds in devastating conflict.
Gorgeously photographed in silvery black and white, this elegiac
adventure story surveys a vanishing way of life and the natural world
that we neglect (and abuse) at our peril.
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