Enjoyably scary and true.
Embrace of the Serpent
Grade: A-
Director: Ciro Guerra( The Wind Journeys), et al., based on the Theodor Koch-Grunberg diary.
Screenplay: Guerra, Jacques Toulemonde Vidal
Cast: Nilbio Torres, Jan Bijvoet
Rating: NR
Runtime: 2 hr 5 min
by John DeSando
“To tear treasure out of the bowels of the land was their desire, with no more moral purpose at the back of it than there is in burglars breaking into a safe.” Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness
Although Embrace of the Serpent is ostensibly about the rubber barons pilfering from the Amazon, it is more about indigenous tribes losing out on all fronts, not the least of which is their ancient culture corrupted by robbers’ money and rampant diseases. That theme of taking from the bowels of the land has been played in the work of Werner Herzog (Aguirre the Wrath of God) and Francis Ford Coppola (Apocalypse Now), with the emphasis on compromising cultures more than being like “sordid buccaneers.”
Karamakate (Nilbio Torres and Antonio Bolivar), a shaman who is the last of his Cohiuano tribe, accompanies scientist Theo (Jan Bijvoet) into the Amazon to search for a sacred healing plant and maybe a new rubber strain. Along the way, the shaman counsels the white man to shed his things to find himself. Also not to deceive the natives as so many whites had done before.
Just as with Conrad and Coppola’s Kurtz, it’s next to impossible for some men to avoid deceit in the jungle, much less to pass up the opportunity to become god-like to the natives. One such adventurer, Priest Gaspar, has taken the Christ motif and made it his crazy own, right down to its cannibalistic undertones.
Based on Theo’s diary about his 1909 adventure and that of his successor, Richard Evans Schultes (Brionne Davis), 40 years later, Embrace of the Serpent continually shows the white man exploiting the natives and facing madness while doing it. The stark black and white cinematography helps declare a vivid struggle between good and evil while the jungle continuously reveals hidden horrors like a jaguar stalking a serpent.
For a jungle drama, it’s delightfully scary stuff.
John DeSando, a Los Angeles Press Club first-place winner for National Entertainment Journalism, hosts WCBE’s It’s Movie Time and co-hosts Cinema Classics. Contact him at JDeSando@Columbus.rr.com
