Embrace Of The Serpent * * * * 1/2

"We need to follow the stars."
"Well you already got four and a half from Flip."

I have a friend who recommended this film to me months ago. But he lives overseas and it was released there quite some time before here.  I made a note to see it on it’s release in Australia, but it has taken me awhile to get around to it.

 So to my half a dozen readers (I flatter myself) I am sorry to be reviewing a film which you have probably already seen.

 At least, let’s see if we share the same opinion.

 Directed by young Colombian Director Ciro Guerra and shot in black and white Embrace of The Serpent is a river film.  At times it  reminded me of Aguirre, The Wrath of God and even Apocalypse Now. Especially with scenes where we come across a community headed by a megalomaniac believing himself to be some kind of messiah.

 In essence it is about three men and two journeys down the Amazon.  We see the lead character Karamakate a native of the Amazon forest as both a young and an older man.  

  Karamakete is the last of his tribe. He is approached in 1906 to help a German explorer Theodore Koch Grunberg who needs the healing qualities of the rare Yakruna plant to prevent his imminent death.  As an orphan who has seen the killing and maiming of his people and his parents by the ruthless and terrible Rubber harvesters Karamakate holds all white people in great suspicion, but after receiving a telling dream he finally agrees to help them.

 Many years later when Karamakate is an old man living alone he is approached by a younger man who has discovered the diaries of Koch Grunberg and wants to re-trace his journey in search of the same rare plant.  

  But at this stage Karamakate cannot remember things (we would probably call it alzheimer's).    Because of his fading memory Karamakate is not even sure if he is alive. His tradition promotes the belief of a “Chullachaqui”, which is a kind of ghost - an empty vessel of one’s self that simultaneously wanders the earth - and Karamakate thinks he might have become a Chullachaqui.

  Embrace of The Serpent is loaded with observation, symbolism and stunning images. The only complaint I’d have about this extraordinary film would be in the final ten minutes when the film incongruously changes  from black and white to colour to convey a hallucinogenic experience. It’s like a blot on a beautifully written page.

  Otherwise Embrace of the Serpent is a beautiful and parabolic film that speaks of the fragility of the river and the forest, the need to respect the land and the awful damage caused by imposing an impertinent religion on another culture. At the same time, I admired the way that it did not romanticize the pernicious suspicions and beliefs of the Amazon natives and the damage it does unto themselves.