Embrace of the Serpent (2016)

Great Film overall

I saw this movie before reading any reviews, and I thought it was very funny. I was very surprised to see the overwhelmingly negative reviews this film received from critics.

if their story seems completely bonkers, almost like a feverish work of fiction, you ain't heard nothing yet.

A film with more than the usual spoiler issues. Talking about it in any detail feels akin to handing you a gift-wrapped present and saying, "I hope you like it -- It's a thriller about a diabolical secret experiment."

In a year that has been rather bleak for grown ups Embrace of the Serpent stands out like a bright light. Intelligent, fascinating, anthropological...if it was a book it would be a real page turner. I loved everything about this film from the powerful presence of Nilbio Torres' & Antonio Boliva as the admirable and wise Karamakate to the critique of Western culture with its twisted, arrogant & so often brutal religion along with its insatiable misappropriation of other's wealth and culture for mere pieces of silver and the patient and sentient willingness of the central figure (deemed savage of course by European eyes) to bring life and understanding to the very German Theo, so stiff and attached to all the wrong things in life. It's beautifully filmed and there is not a single moment of tedium or narrowness as the story unfolds over several decades. Wonderful treat and it lingers long in the imagination after the film has ended. Frankly it's inspirational.

(Flash Review)Not just relating to the Amazon River but the introspection of depth that the man seeking a rare healing plant must dive into in order to find it. That is the core story line but there is much more to it and open to one's personal perspectives. The film is shot in rich black and white and has two timelines. Two white men, 40 years apart or so locate the same native who knows where to find the plant. So you get the see the native as a young buck and a wise old man. The two timelines allow the viewer to see the effect of some modern cultures that have slipped into their primitive world over time. Yet another story nugget is more spiritual. Both searches (old and new) are on long journeys through the jungle and as they search the native encourages the white man to help locate the plant by looking into his soul and feel for it and ask the jungle for help. Pretty interesting film with great cinematography, authentic cultural scenes and some very surreal moments yet some may find the pace a bit sluggish.

......................................................from Pasto,Colombia...Via: L.A. CA., CALI, COLOMBIA and ORLANDO, FL It isn't much of a leap to venture that the vast majority of IMDb Users have never seen a Colombian Film. If there is a single word in the above Title that grabs you, rest assured, you must "EMBRACE" this Oscar-nominated gem by placing it at the top of your "Must See" List! Colombian Director Ciro Guerra (Los Viajes del Viento/read my Review) has taken an Amazonian Shaman's reality-based Dream and crafted it into a visionary cinematic hallucination for the ages! The operative term here is "Culture-Clash". Two delicately intertwined story lines, both inspired by travel journals authored three decades apart by two Amazonian explorers; German scientist Theodor Koch-Grunberg (Jan Bijvoet, "Borgman"), in 1909, and by American amateur botanist Richard Evans Schultes (Brionne Davis, "Avenged"), thirty years later. EMBRACE opens a gritty and convincingly realistic window into the Colombian Amazon Region of the early 20th Century. Guerra gets up close and personal with some of the persistent cultural atrocities perpetrated on indigenous peoples in the Amazon region of Colombia, without dwelling inordinately on them. As if the three plus centuries of Spanish Colonial Rule had not provided enough genocide and torture!For those of you addicted to "Fast and Furious" pacing in movies, undoubtedly, will find EMBRACE a bit "Tedious and Slow", but I would say, "Deliberate and True to Life". One can, at best, barely imagine the laid- back life rhythms in remote regions of the Amazon a century ago! The intentional ever-so-slightly grainy Black & White cinematography imbues EMBRACE with an authentic 1930's look and feel. Of course, there have been numerous critiques of thusly having deprived us of the myriad of Amazon shades of green…But EMBRACE is not a Travel Promo and I applaud Ciro Guerra's Black & White decision! Here is a comment/comparison you probably might not see anywhere else: Although Director Ciro Guerra was born in 1981, I can't help but think that, as a kid, he saw and was influenced by Stanley Kubrick's 1968, "2001" (My Favorite Movie)! There were, in my opinion, a number of interesting parallels, confirmation of which I will leave up to you! Shaman Karamakate, the last survivor of his tribe (Nibio Torres-young/Antonio Bolivar-old) who has been chewed up and spit out as a lifelong victim of culture clash, and, as a result, defines himself as "chullachaqui", a walking empty shell zombie of a man.EMBRACE is light years from being a feel-good movie, yet, there is a "spirituality and focus which can help you transcend even a worst- case scenario of mistreatment and misfortune in life", that is transformational and which provides ground swelling inspiration! This unique film would probably appeal to those who crave unusual true stories, those of you who enjoy Drama focused on a Clash of Cultures, and movies set in exotic locations! 10*.....ENJOY/DISFRUTELA!

You may be interested in an introduction to tropical botany in Amazonian Colombia. Or you may be interested in an anthropological take on Latin American primitive tribes. Or you may be interested in the adventurous travels scientists studying these topics had still to face less one century ago. Or you may be interested in the devastating effects western civilization had and still have on what remains of the ancient cultures of Colombia and their environment. Or you may simply be looking for some great photography and motion capture of the luxurious and colorful Amazonian forest.This is for me at least and if that's the case for you as well I warn you: you won't find much of anything I just listed. You can learn much more by spending 10 minutes on Wikipedia.Instead you will find a slow and boring 2 hours b/w fictional search for a healing plant a couple of botanists undertake in the early 20th century. Both are guided by the same proud shaman after a time span of 30 years.Mr Guerra admitted in an interview that the film is like it is because it is meant to reflect the shaman perception: so the fact that I don't like it depends on my inability to enjoy the point of view of a shaman (eclectically put together by some anthropologist friend of the director and vaguely based on few documents and some native stories). Do the nearly universally positive reviews reflect the fact that the few who had the chance to see this film were under the effect of some psychoactive plant?Sarcasm aside, I can appreciate the hard (and sometimes great) directing work that must have been put in place to realize this film. Nonetheless I think it's bad and the positive reviews are due to... plain ignorance or a blindfolded green-peacekeeper attitude. (Personally I have nothing against those attempting to "protect" and "preserve": I just find that most "believers" produce more damages than solutions with their activism with no long-term/wide-pov strategy). Even if the point of the b/w, the length, the slowness and the silence was to show the natives' POV (while we, city guys, would see colors, lots of things happening every second and lots of sounds/noises) is it a good choice from a filming perspective?If the legacy of his ancestors is so important why the director didn't use a different medium to "do something"? (speculating) He gave up on making a doc because he thought that a doc would have needed too much research and effort compared to how well it would have served the purpose of raising awareness on the issues. And he gave up on writing a book because he had no real understanding of the topics. He just felt some sentimental sense of impotence for a past slowly disappearing.Quoting the director: "we weren't interested in the superficial, scientific truth. We were interested in the deeper truths of the relationship between them (the natives, the shaman) and the plants (nature, the world)". And to achieve this apparently the director had natives collaborate in the writing process... genius and very deep...Everyone's 5yo daughter draws stuff or makes up stories. And while our affection makes each of these personally interesting and important, this doesn't mean they are "good" in any relevant sense. So you're warned: you should widen your listening experience to Mozart if all you've known is pop-music. But here we have no Mozart at all: just someone playing an instrument he barely knows and producing noises.As far as I remember Mel Gibson's Apocalypto was a pop action/adventure movie. Nonetheless as far as my desire to watch something regarding some the topics listed above is concerned, it's still much better than "El Abrazo", with an unexpected plus coming out of the entertainment factor.