Quartile rating: 8/10 · 1 rating
The epic story of the first contact, encounter, approach, betrayal and, eventually, life-transcending friendship, between Karamakate, an Amazonian shaman, last survivor of his people, and two scientists that, over the course of 40 years, travel through the Amazon in search of a sacred plant that can heal them. Inspired by the journals of the first explorers of the Colombian Amazon, Theodor Koch-Grunberg and Richard Evans Schultes.
Embrace of the Serpent is a haunting, visually extraordinary film shot in black-and-white by Ciro Guerra. Its dual-timeline structure exploring colonialism, memory, and indigenous spirituality through the Amazon is genuinely singular. The cinematography is exceptional — the monochrome rendering of the jungle creates an almost mythic, dreamlike atmosphere that is unlike nearly any other film. The plot is richly conceived, weaving anthropological history with spiritual allegory in a way that feels both grounded and transcendent, earning a high mark. Novelty is a clear 4: the film's voice, conception, and execution are utterly distinctive — a Colombian-language art film shot in black-and-white in the Amazon, structured as parallel journeys across decades, with deep engagement with indigenous cosmology. Acting is solid but uneven across a large cast of non-professional indigenous performers mixed with leads, keeping it at 3. The ending, while thematically resonant and appropriately ambiguous, doesn't quite cohere with the same power as the journey preceding it, landing just below the film's overall high watermark.