☆ ☆ ☆ ☆
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.
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