EMBRACE OF THE SERPENT / EL ABRAZO DE LA SERPIENTE

In 1909, a canoe bearing ailing German explorer Theodor Koch-Grünberg arrives at river’s edge, where the young shaman Karamakate, ostensibly the last member of a decimated tribe, waits warily. Theodor is searching for an exceedingly rare flower that he believes could cure him of his fatal illness. Resentful of whites, Karamakate agrees to help only after Theodor promises to lead him to other surviving members of his tribe. Their journey takes them through rivers and jungles ravaged by European interference, climaxing at a mission where a sadistic Spanish priest lords over a huddle of young indigenous orphans. Meanwhile, in a parallel narrative set in the same region in 1940, American explorer Richard Evans Schultes conducts his own search for the elusive flower in the company of an older Karamakate in a landscape brutalized by the rubber trade.

Recalling such visionary films as Jim Jarmusch’s Dead Man and Werner Herzog’s Aguirre, the Wrath of God, Embrace of the Serpent grips with suspense as it captures a dialogue between representatives of two worlds in devastating conflict. Gorgeously photographed in silvery black and white, this elegiac adventure story surveys a vanishing way of life and the natural world that we neglect (and abuse).

Diana Sanchez, Toronto International Film Festival