Embrace of the Serpent: A Hypnotic Journey Through the Amazon

By JBFC Marketing Assistant Sarah Soliman

Embrace of the Serpent, Colombian director Ciro Guerra’s captivating new film, draws you in from its first frame. This cinematic expedition through the Amazon places the viewer in the action with shots that make you feel as though you’re the one paddling a boat down the Amazon, or sitting on the jungle floor looking up at the night sky.

This Academy Award-nominee for Best Foreign Language Feature is the first Colombian film with an indigenous protagonist. Embrace of the Serpent tells the story of Karamakate, the last surviving member of the Cohiuano tribe, and the two expeditions he leads through the Amazon at the request of Western scientists: the first when he is still a young man with enough hope left in him that he grasps at the small chance of being reunited with his people, and the second when he is older and suffering from memory loss—a loss that illustrates the devastating effects of colonialism on life in the Amazon.

The specter of colonialism permeates the film. We see some of its most damaging effects in a harrowing scene at a rubber plantation, and in an orphanage where a Spanish priest tries to stamp out the religious beliefs and native languages of indigenous children. But even the ostensibly good intentioned white explorers whom Karamakate leads through the jungle are not innocent of the evils of their fellow westerners, or as disengaged from the legacy of colonialism as they might like to believe.

Many jungle-set films take Joseph Conrad’s novella, Heart of Darkness, as an urtext, but Embrace of the Serpent turns that on its head by focusing on Karamakate, rather than the white explorers who come into the jungle. Guerra explained to the Los Angeles Times how this shift in perspective influences his film:

“In the Western tradition, the jungle is a monster that devours men and makes them crazy. For the indigenous people, the jungle is powerful, but at the same time it is indifferent. It’s a place that was there before and will be there after. They love it. That’s the vision they have. So the film is told from that perspective. For the indigenous people, it’s the outsiders that bring the darkness.”

Although it grapples with the effects of colonialism on the Amazon and its peoples, Embrace of the Serpent is never didactic. The film renders the lushness of the jungle in gorgeous black-and-white cinematography, luxuriating in the dreamlike narrative just long enough to truly shock in the moments when the narrative shifts focus to the nightmarish horrors that also await these characters—and us—on this journey.

This incandescent film—the first to be filmed in the Colombian Amazon in 30 years—gives us an intimate look into an underseen world.

Embrace of the Serpent returns to screens at the JBFC on Tuesday, August 28 at 7:20 as part of limited series Oscilloscope @ 10, which runs Aug. 27-30. Tickets are now available here.