Embrace of the Serpent (2015)

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Embrace of the Serpent (2015) – C. Guerra

Director Ciro Guerra’s film offers an indigenous perspective on colonialism, presenting interactions between Karamakate (played by Nilbio Torres when young and Antonio Bolivar when old; both actual indigenous actors), a Shaman who has survived the eradication of his people and two White researchers, Theo (Jan Bijvoet) in the early 1900s and Evan (Brionne Davis) in the early 1940s.  The film alternates between these two encounters. Although one would expect greater devastation in the later era, it seems pretty bad at both timepoints, as rubber barons have already begun their conquest of the peoples and the land when the film begins.  Religious missionaries (traditional and self-made) seek to “save” the people and convert their beliefs.  Both researchers claim to be searching for the healing plant yakluna but their real motives may be hidden (and what they would do with yakluna, which also has psychedelic properties used in shamanistic ceremonies) is unclear. What is clear is that, for indigenous peoples, the coming of Europeans and their capitalistic ways represented destruction of their culture and their environment. The message for our current world couldn’t be more overt, even though the movie isn’t preachy and keeps things implicit.  Filmed in beautiful B&W in the Amazon rainforest of Colombia, the movie would have been a sight to behold on the big screen. There are some very surrealistic episodes (including a trippy experience in colour).  Of course, the film harkens back to Werner Herzog’s Aguirre (1972) and Fitzcarraldo (1982), but that director only showed us the folly of the colonialists and not the sadness and bewilderment of the people destroyed by them.