EMBRACE OF THE SERPENT
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Picking up where Werner Herzog might have left off, Ciro Guerra’s scintillating journey into the heart of the Amazon is a stunning piece of cinema.
Picking up where Werner Herzog might have left off, Ciro Guerra’s scintillating journey into the heart of the Amazon is a stunning piece of cinema.
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Both a love poem to the jungle and all humanity that have relied upon it, it’s also a poem to humanity itself. Shot in glowing monochrome in what must have been the most arduous circumstances, Embrace Of The Serpent is a once in a lifetime achievement.
Karamakate is a shaman and the last of his kind, a man fearful of white people and with good reason. Rubber barons have decimated the indigenous population and are hell bent on decimating vast swathes of the Amazon as well. Yet ironically, it is two white men of science who come to define his life – one as a young man and the other forty years later – men who are in search of the sacred Yakruna plant which Karamakate’s people had been protecting.
As with all journeys, there is a price to pay and this idea is the backbone of Guerra’s gripping drama. This is a sensual mixture of dream, fantasy and historical reality that has the capacity to turn your own belief structures upside down. It really is that powerful, one of those rare films that leave you discombobulated on leaving the cinema, uncertain of how to approach a world that seemed so certain to begin with.
That is wholly due to the Colombian director’s capacity to turn 19th and 20th century certainties – the confidence that white man always knows best – entirely on their heads. It’s not a new notion, but seldom if ever has it been presented with such confidence, and in such a thoroughly beguiling way. It’s a Heart of Darkness journey into madness twinned with an Apocalypse Now sense of absurdity. Yet throughout Guerra gives us vital touch points to keep us in touch with the reality of Karamakate’s world (indeed, our own).
Embrace Of The Serpent is thoroughly absorbing, a mesmerising, melancholic sometimes hypnotic experience that despite its bleak and angry narrative, still finds cause for hope and celebration in our basic goodness, no matter how sidelined or buried it can get.
// COLIN FRASER
Previewed at Palace Verona, Sydney, on 24 July 2016.
Karamakate is a shaman and the last of his kind, a man fearful of white people and with good reason. Rubber barons have decimated the indigenous population and are hell bent on decimating vast swathes of the Amazon as well. Yet ironically, it is two white men of science who come to define his life – one as a young man and the other forty years later – men who are in search of the sacred Yakruna plant which Karamakate’s people had been protecting.
As with all journeys, there is a price to pay and this idea is the backbone of Guerra’s gripping drama. This is a sensual mixture of dream, fantasy and historical reality that has the capacity to turn your own belief structures upside down. It really is that powerful, one of those rare films that leave you discombobulated on leaving the cinema, uncertain of how to approach a world that seemed so certain to begin with.
That is wholly due to the Colombian director’s capacity to turn 19th and 20th century certainties – the confidence that white man always knows best – entirely on their heads. It’s not a new notion, but seldom if ever has it been presented with such confidence, and in such a thoroughly beguiling way. It’s a Heart of Darkness journey into madness twinned with an Apocalypse Now sense of absurdity. Yet throughout Guerra gives us vital touch points to keep us in touch with the reality of Karamakate’s world (indeed, our own).
Embrace Of The Serpent is thoroughly absorbing, a mesmerising, melancholic sometimes hypnotic experience that despite its bleak and angry narrative, still finds cause for hope and celebration in our basic goodness, no matter how sidelined or buried it can get.
// COLIN FRASER
Previewed at Palace Verona, Sydney, on 24 July 2016.
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STARRING
Nilbio Torres
Antonio Bolivar
Jan Bijvoet
Brine Davis
DIRECTOR
Ciro Guerra
WRITER
Ciro Guerra
COUNTRY
Colombia / Venezuela / Argentina (subtitles)
CLASSIFICATION
M
RUNTIME
125 minutes
AUSTRALIAN
RELEASE DATE
July 28, 2016
Nilbio Torres
Antonio Bolivar
Jan Bijvoet
Brine Davis
DIRECTOR
Ciro Guerra
WRITER
Ciro Guerra
COUNTRY
Colombia / Venezuela / Argentina (subtitles)
CLASSIFICATION
M
RUNTIME
125 minutes
AUSTRALIAN
RELEASE DATE
July 28, 2016
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