Movie Review El Abrazo De La Serpiente in Spanish

2 VOYAGES OF SELF-DISCOVERY

past Douglas Messerli

Ciro Guerra and Jacques Toulemonde Vidal (writers), Ciro Guerra (director) El abrazo de la serpiente (Embrace of the Snake) / 2015

Although information technology may audio ridiculously contradictory, Columbian director Ciro Guerra'south absolutely beautiful black-and-white feature, Embrace of the Snake, is both a highly complex tale that covers a catamenia of 31 years in the Columbian Amazon, with a rather simple plot that basically repeats the outset half in its geographical territory and goal, if not graphic symbol, although even there, both voyages are overseen past Karamakate (Antonio Bolivar, equally the elder, and Nilbio Torres every bit his younger self), an Amazonian shaman who has left his tribe afterward seeing many of them die in a takeover of their land by safe barons.

     Karamakate lives alone in the jungle, and is evidently the concluding of his tribe to know where to observe the rare (fictional) constitute, yakruna. The commencement of the white-men who seek him out, the German scientist Théo van Martius (January Bijvoet), has come, with his servant-friend Manduca (Miguel Dionisio Ramos), to find a way to save himself from dying, having been told that just Karmakate can cure him.

      Furious at all whites, believing that they have completely destroyed his tribe, Karmakate refuses, only temporarily prolonging the German's life by blasting a hallucinogenic white powder up his nose.

      Finally, convinced past the bond between the native Manduca and Théo, he agrees to get on the voyage in search of yakruna, in part, to see if, every bit Théo claims, members of his tribe still survive. It may seem odd to draw this hallucinatory movie as a "road movie," but that's what it is, as the trio encounter the terrors of the river and the wonders of the jungle, including a visit to a horrifying Castilian Catholic Mission, where the native boys are regularly browbeaten and abused by the priest, Gaspar (Luigi Sciamanna), for their "pagan" behavior. The travelers destroy the priest's reign, freeing the tortured boys. Even so, they never quite find their goal, and Théo dies in the "hell-hole" he has been trying to escape, although not earlier uncovering many of its wonders and sending his diaries back to Germany for eventual publication.

     The 2nd company, in 1940, to Karmakate is an American botanist, Evan, a far more than selfish and venal being, who, having read Théo's book, is seeking out the aforementioned drug for himself, since he claims that he cannot dream (my love friend David Antin is the only human being I know who has made this merits). Nosotros likewise discover later in the film that he is seeking out the drug in possible connection of securing a drug that might go on the rubber trees from disease, since US supplies from Asia has dwindled considering of the Japanese occupation of Globe State of war II.

      In brusque, his motives are far more than questionable than Théo'south, and past this time Karmakate believes himself to be a chullachaqui, a hollow spirit who is losing his memory and is merely passing through without cognition of the world in which he lives. He only agrees to take the voyage this time considering of Evan's dear of plants and because he recognizes in the book Evan has (Théo'south work), the same rock markings that he has, himself, made for many years. But this time, it is Evan who must lead, and the trip is made for Karmakate's spiritual revival, non for Evan's—although the botanist has no conception of that fact.

Again, they come across what is left of his tribe, and revisit what is left of the Spanish mission, in which the previously beaten boys have now grown up to go self-flagellating acolytes to a man who claims he is the messiah, who but accepts the two strangers into his company when they announced to be the Biblical Magi and when Karmakate temporarily cures the messiah's married woman. By the time they escape the madness of this religious commune, the messiah is demanding that his equally mad followers "eat of his mankind"—a demand that nosotros can't tell whether he means "literally," as in a telephone call for cannibalistic behavior, or is a telephone call for sexual intercourse. The visitors have no choice but to seek a quick escape. Notwithstanding even here Karmakate demands that Evan given up all of his earthly possessions, which the American does, except his record actor, in a kind of Herzogian want to hear the cultural joys he volition probably never encounter again. And music is essential in this movie.

     When the tree from which the drug is fabricated is finally institute, Karmakate determines to destroy it; even so, not before allowing Evan one dose of its hallucinogenic powers, which briefly transforms this blackness-and-white masterpiece into color.

     We never know what happens to either of the central characters, but it doesn't truly affair, because as in all such transformative works, it is the voyage that is the true focus, not the characters who undergo that voyage. Ulysses is only fascinating for his adventures, and upon his return to Penelope is simply a boring old homo.

Encompass of the Snake won the Fine art Cinema Award at the 2015 Cannes Picture Festival, and best pic at the 2017 Riviera International Film Festival, equally well as being nominated for the All-time Foreign Language Film at the 88^th Academy Awards.

Los Angeles, Dec 31, 2017

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Source: http://internationalcinemareview.blogspot.com/2017/12/ciro-cuerra-el-abrazo-de-la-serpiente.html

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