'Embrace of the Serpent' Is a Haunting Tale of Colombia's Amazon
'Embrace of the Serpent' Is a Haunting Tale of Colombia's Amazon
The country's first Oscar-nominated feature film takes a clear-eyed view of colonialism and its legacy.
In Colombia’s first Oscar-nominated feature film, director Ciro Guerra offers both an ode to humanity's capacity to hope and a eulogy for the loss of Latin America’s indigenous culture and knowledge.
"Embrace of the Serpent" takes place during Latin America’s rubber boom in the early 20th century. The film’s message is delivered through Karamakate, a shaman and the last surviving member of his tribe. His story is based loosely on the diaries of two European scientists, German Theodor Koch-Grunberg and American Richard Evans Schultes, whose characters accompany Karamakate...
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