Embrace of the Serpent

EMBRACE OF THE SERPENT (EL ABRAZO DE LE SERPIENTE)ย (15)

D: Ciro Guerra

Diaphana/Buffalo/Caracol/Ciudad Lunar/Dago Garcia/MC/Nortesur (Cristina Gallego)

Colombia/Venezuela/Argentina ๐Ÿ‡จ๐Ÿ‡ดย ๐Ÿ‡ป๐Ÿ‡ชย ๐Ÿ‡ฆ๐Ÿ‡ทย 2015

125 mins


Adventure/Drama


W: Ciro Guerra & Jacques Toulemonde Vidal [based on the diaries of Theodor Koch-Grunberg & Richard Evans Schultes]

DP: David Gallego

Ed: Etienne Boussac

Mus: Nascuy Linares


Nilbio Torres (Young Karamakate), Antonio Bolivar (Old Karamakate), Jan Bijvoet (Theo), Brionne Davis (Evan), Luigi Sciamanna (Gaspar)


Embrace Of The Serpent details the adventures of two journeys through the Amazon, both of them thirty years apart, the first set in the early 20th Century and the second around the 1940's.

Karamakate, the last tribesman of his people, reluctantly agrees to guide a German scientist and his companion, once a local of the area, to the whereabouts of a sacred healing plant, but upon the journey, Karamakate sees the detrimental effects that westernisation has had on the rainforest, both with the harvest of rubber and other crops & the dwindling numbers of the indigenous.

The second part of the story sees the same journey take place when Karamakate is a much older man, his memory and knowledge fading, guiding an American botanist to the same fabled plant.

The film does a magnificent job in taking the viewer on its journey, using washed-out black & white photography as it presents South American cultures which can now only be read about in books.ย 

Critically acclaimed, this became the first Colombian-funded film to receive an Oscar nomination for Best Foreign Language Film.

Don't expect Apocalypto (qv), this is far more artful and subtle with its depictions.

6/10


Embrace of the Serpent
Embrace of the Serpent