EMBRACE OF THE SERPENT is a black and white picture painting a vivid tale. One which could have descended into moral preaching, yet instead languidly transports the viewer along the Amazon River across time revealing moral and ethical codes for us to choose to learn and adopt or merely to observe. The landscape is beautiful yet hides brutalities on its banks.
The Colombian movie, nominated for a foreign-language Academy Award, weaves two parallel stories 30 years apart. The movie was inspired by the travel journals of ethnologist Theodor Koch-Grunberg and biologist Richard Evans Schultes.
In 1909, a terminally ill German ethnologist comes seeking a sacred plant. The sick elderly Theo (Jan Bijvoet) and his indigenous companion guide, Manduca (Yauenkü Migue), want Karamakate (Nilbio Torres) to help them find yakruna, a sacred plant with healing properties and psychedelic side effects. Karamakate refuses as white men (variously rubber barons and missionaries) have raped his land and either wiped out or enslaved his people. Theo convinces him that his tribesmen haven’t been wiped out and that he can take Karamate back to them. The three set out on the river, paddling through the jungle on their own existentialist journeys.
In the parallel tale, an older Karamakate (Antonio Bolivar) is once again visited by a white man. Evan (Brionne Davis) is a young American who is studying rare plants. Using Theo’s diary from earlier times as a guide, Evan also comes searching for yakruna. The old man’s memory has faded. He puts his faith in dreams, myths and the mystical voices of his ancestors.
Directed by Ciro Guerra, EMBRACE OF THE SERPENT was filmed in a remote area of Colombia with mainly nonprofessional actors. Like the jungle itself, the cinematography, is breathtaking. No image is wasted and as in the tale, everything has a meaning. The meaning applied by white men as ‘civilisers’, ‘people of religion’ and plantation owners is ultimately corrupt, destructive and dismal.
The film depicts searing cruelty and inhumanity. It yields misery, including a harsh scene of a maimed person begging to be killed. Whilst colonials try to save natives from “cannibalism and ignorance”, it is the indigenous tribes who show that loss of possessions is not always tragic. On losing his compass, Theo is told that ‘knowledge belongs to all’. When Evan loses his map, he is forced to discover that one learns most about one’s place and surrounds directly from the place itself.
The sound track of ambient sound and song blends the ‘song’ of the people with nature.
This is a haunting mystical movie.
Warnings- The film contains nudity, violence against children, drug use and disturbing images.
The film is in Spanish, Portuguese, German, Catalan, Latin and indigenous Amazonian languages with subtitles.
Running time- 125 minutes.
Advance Screenings- 22 to 24 July. In cinemas 28 July.
http://embraceoftheserpent.com.au.