EMBRACE OF THE SERPENT

In 1909, Karamakate, a reclusive shaman living in Amazonia, meets Theodor, a very ill white ethnographer who convinces him to venture together into the forest to find yakruna, a mysterious plant with healing and hallucinogenic properties with power over dreams, assuring the shaman that he can help him find members of his tribe, who Karamakate believes have been wiped out by colonists. We again meet Karamakate in the 1940s, and this time the elderly shaman agrees to serve as a guide for Evan, a botanist seeking the same plant. The winner of the Art Cinema award at this year’s Directors’ Fortnight in Cannes, this third feature by Colombian filmmaker Ciro Guerra (L’Ombre de Bogota, Les voyages du vent) is inspired by the travelogues of German explorer Theodor Koch-Grünberg and American ethnobotanist Richard Evans Schultes, helping him travel back in time and immerse himself in the dreamlike but venomous atmosphere of the dense jungle. An immersive sensory experience and a painful reflection on civilization, Embrace of the Serpent is a rare film of captivating beauty, thanks in part to magnificent green-tinted black and white cinematography by David Gallego.