Embrace of the Serpent is Colombia's entry for the Best Foreign Language film Oscar. It is playing as part of the "Spotlight" program, which consists of films not submitted for consideration in competition. These are hand-picked by the programming staff to share with Sundance audiences. Other films in this category include Miles Ahead, Green Room, and The Lobster - all of which premiered at other festivals in the past year.
Embrace of the Serpent chronicles the 40-year story of Karamakate, an indigenous shaman who, on two separate occasions, encounters a white man in search of a sacred plant. The man Karamakate aids in his younger days is the sickly traveler Theo (Jan Bijvoet). Theo searches the plant for its healing powers. 40 years later, Karamakate meets Evan (Brionne Davis) who hopes to harvest the plant for its potential destructive capabilities.
Throughout both journeys, the film explores themes of trust and spirituality (especially the warped kind). This is very much a Heart of Darkness story, and it's interesting to see it told through a lens in which the indigenes play actual characters with depth. The actors who handle the dual role of Karamakate are both incredible.
The film dissects the nuances of native traditions while also occasionally indicting them, which lends depth not only to the characters or the story itself but to the setting as well. Storywise, everything works in perfect harmony.
However, what works as a careful examination of humanity for one audience may come off as slow for another. The film unfolds at a very deliberate pace that some may find too slow for an adventure story.
Additionally, there's one scene later in the film where the elder Karamakate and Evan encounter a religious cult and a leader so insane, he makes Col. Kurtz look like a teddy bear. What unfolds is certainly the most absurd sequence of the film. It feels like something that might be in King Kong or any one of the egregious "cannibalsploitation" films of the late '70s and early '80s. I was interested to learn in the Q&A session that this was the moment in the film that adhered the closest to what was written in the original travel logs on which the film is based. Turns out we were wrong for letting that scene remove us from the experience, however briefly.
Lastly, I had trouble seeing past one visual hiccup in an otherwise gorgeous film. The black and white cinematography exposes different textures in ways that color can't often capture. There's a very fast helicopter tracking shot over the Amazonian canopy that was too much for my eyes to handle. All that texture moving at that speed nearly made me motion sick.
In the end, Embrace of the Serpent far outdoes The Danish Girl as the most audacious cinematic challenge of the past year for this reviewer. Heck, Serpent may be one of the most challenging, yet emotionally rewarding, films I've ever seen. It deserves its place among the Oscar nominees. I've yet to see Son of Saul, but the three foreign-language nominees I've seen so far are among some of the very best movies I've seen in years. Give them a chance if films like Serpent, Mustang, Theeb or Son of Saul are playing in your area.
A-
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