Film Excess - Free Ukraine - Stop Putin - End the war NOW!!: Embrace of the Serpent/El Abrazo de la Serpiente (2015) - Guerra's Amazon meditation is a towering gift to us all

7/02/2016

Embrace of the Serpent/El Abrazo de la Serpiente (2015) - Guerra's Amazon meditation is a towering gift to us all

♥♥♥♥♥♥

+ Best Psychedelic Movie of the Year
+ Best Colombian Movie of the Year
+ Best B/W Movie of the Year
+ Best Poster of the Year

An ethereal poster for Ciro Guerra's Embrace of the Serpent

Embrace of the Serpent is the third film from Columbian master co-writer-director Ciro Guerra (The Wind Journeys/Los Viajes del Viento (2009)), written with Jacques Toulemonde Vidal (Anna (2015)) and based on the travel journals of ethnologist Theodor Koch-Grunberg and biologist Richard Evans Schultes.

A sick German ethnologist arrives with his native guide to an Indian hermit in the Amazon in 1909 in search of a storied plant. 31 years later, an American biologist returns in search of the answers that were not supplied by the earlier expedition.

Embrace of the Serpent is a film that defies words. And yet here I go, trying to write some words to explain a bit about it. From the first to last frame, it is a film that commands your attention and sucks you in as an audience member. It takes us on a powerful, immersive, meditative journey to one of the harshest and most fascinating regions on the planet: the Amazon jungle.
The film transcends the despairing stories of peoples, plants and animals going extinct due to human stupidity and evil, - which, however, also get related forcefully, - and interacts with keen intelligence and depth with themes such as knowledge, the cosmos, humans, nature and religion on a more universal level.

There are few films that compare to Embrace of the Serpent. It immediately joins an exclusive club of jungle adventure/human meditations such as Werner Herzog's Fitzcarraldo (1982) and Francis Ford Coppola's masterpiece Apocalypse Now (1979). Serpent is more in line with the indigenous peoples' culture, losses and point of view than those films, however, and also bring to mind Jim Jarmusch's masterpiece Dead Man (1995). Guerro amazes again and again with evocative scenes, sparse scoring and elegant B/W photography (by David Gallego (Violencia (2015))) that give the story an eternal, timeless feel, and the film is on no accounts lagging behind any of the previously mentioned, grand films.
Awesome is also the acting in Serpent: Belgian Jan Bijvoet (Borgman (2013)) as Theo and Brionne Davis (Avenged (2013)) as Evans, a rational scientist fraught with a deep, recognizable wish to outcast his knowledge and Western luggage in lieu of newfound wisdom, are phenomenal. As are debuting Nilbio Torres and Antonio Bolivar, who play Karamate at the two points in his life with extraordinary integrity and feeling, and Yauenkü Migue as the loyal, smart and good-hearted guide Manduca.
There's a true must-see film out there right now, and if you have any kind of a chance to see it in a cinema, you'd better grab it and fast. That film is Embrace of the Serpent.

Related posts:

2015 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED IV]

2015 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III]
2015 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]
2015 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]

Watch a trailer for the film here

Cost: Estimated 1.4 mil. $
Box office: 2.9 mil. $ and counting
= Too early to say (but as of yet a flop)
[Embrace of the Serpent premiered May 15 (Cannes) and runs 125 minutes. Filming took place in the Columbian part of the Amazon for around 8 weeks. The film won the Art Cinema Award in the Directors' Fortnight section in Cannes. The film opened #49 with a 50k $ first weekend in 3 theaters in North America, where it peaked in 93 theaters and has grossed 1.3 mil. $ (44.8 % of the total gross to date). The film's 2nd and 3rd biggest markets are Columbia with 1.2 mil. $ (41.4 %) and Argentina with 121k $ (4.2 %). It was nominated for the Best Foreign Film Oscar, the first Columbian film ever to achieve that honor, but lost to Son of Saul. It was also nominated for the Best International Film Independent Spirit award and a host of other awards, many of which it has won. Embrace of the Serpent is certified fresh at 99 % with a 8.4 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Embrace of the Serpent?

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Donald Sutherland has passed away

Born in Canada, Sutherland battled polio as a child. His first credit was in Suspense (1963, TV-series) and his first film was The Castle of the Living Dead (1964). Later credits in his remarkable career include The Saint (1965-66), The Dirty Dozen (1967), M*A*S*H (1970), Kelly's Heroes (1970), Klute (1971), Don't Look Now (1973), 1900 (1976), Casanova (1976), The Eagle Has Landed (1976), Ordinary People (1980), A Dry White Season (1989), JFK (1991), Outbreak (1995), Fallen (1998), Virus (1999), Fierce People (2005), Pride & Prejudice (2005), Lord of War (2005), The Hunger Games (2012), The Undoing (2020, miniseries) and many more. He passed away at age 88. R.I.P.

Roger Corman has passed away

Born in Detroit, Michigan, Corman had a sprawling, intellectually hungry life as a youth and young man before arriving with his first film in 1955, Five Guns West. He would follow that with titles such as Apache Woman, It Conquered the World, Attack of the Crab Monsters, Teenage Cave Man, A Bucket of Blood, House of Usher, The Little Shop of Horrors, The Pit and the Pendulum, The Intruder, The Raven, The Terror, The Masque of Red Death, The Tomb of Ligeia, The Wild Angels, The Trip, Bloody Mama and many more. As a producer he was behind almost 500 films. Arguably among the most important filmmakers of the 20th century, Corman passed away at age 98. R.I.P.

William Friedkin has died

Born in Chicago, Friedkin accrued TV credits prior to his advance to the big screen as the director of Good TImes (1967), The Birthday Party (1968), The Night They Raided Minsky's (1968) and The Boys in the Band (1970) before his major breakthrough, The French Connection (1971), for which he won his only Oscar. He followed it up with the even bigger smash, The Exorcist (1973), arguably the best horror film of all time, for which he was Oscar-nominated. Later credits include Sorcerer (1977), Cruising (1980), To Live and Die in L.A. (1985), Rampage (1987), Rules of Engagement (2000), Killer Joe (2011) and The Devil and Father Amorth (2017, documentary). Friedkin passed away at age 87. R.I.P.

Louise Fletcher has passed away

Born in Alabama to deaf parents, Fletcher got her first credits in late-1950s TV-series.She took a 10 year-long sabbatical to devote her time to motherhood after the release of A Gathering of Eagles, but then came back and soon saw her career's most important part, as Nurse Ratched in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975), for which she won her sole Oscar. Later credits include Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977), The Lucky Star (1980), Brainstorm (1983), Two Moon Junction (1988), Cruel Intentions (1999), A Perfect Man (2013) and many more. Fletcher passed away at age 88. R.I.P.

Jean-Luc Godard has passed away

Born in Paris, France, Godard lived much of his life in Switzerland. He wrote for French film criticism magazine Cahiers du Cinema and became foundational for the New French Wave that inspired new waves in scores of other countries across the world with his Breathless (1960). Later credits include A Woman Is A Woman (1961), Vivre Sa Vie (1962), Le Petit Soldat (1962), Contempt (1963), Alphaville (1965), Pierrot le Fou (1965), 2 or 3 Things I Know About Her (1967), Weekend (1967), Every Man for Himself (1980), King Lear (1987), Century of Cinema (1995, documentary), Goodbye to Language (2014) and many more. Godard died of assisted suicide at age 91. R.I.P.

Wolfgang Petersen has died

James Caan has died

Caan was born the son of Jewish immigrants from Germany in New York. He got his start on TV in the early 1960s. His credits include El Dorado (1966), The Rain People (1969), Brian's Song (1971, TV movie), The Godfather (1972), - for which he earned his only Oscar nomination, - Slither (1973), The Gambler (1974), Funny Lady (1975), Rollerball (1975), Silent Movie (1976), Hide in Plain Sight (1980), - the only film he also directed, - Thief (1981), Misery (1990), Honeymoon in Vegas (1992), Bottle Rocket (1996), Eraser (1996), Dogville (2003), Elf (2003), Las Vegas (2003-07), Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (2009) and many more. Caan passed away at age 82. R.I.P.

Jean-Louis Trintignant has died

Born in Vaucluse, France, Trintignant's theatrical debut as an actor was in If All the Guys in the World... (1955). Later credits include ...And God Created Woman (1956), The Seven Deadly Sins (1961), Inferno (1964), A Man and A Woman (1966), My Love, My Love (1967), A Man to Kill (1967), The Great Silence (1968), Z (1969), The Assassination (1972), Three Colors: Red (1994), Amour (2012), Happy End (2017) and many more. He also wrote and directed two films in the 1970s. Trintignant passed away at age 91. R.I.P.

Ray Liotta has died

Adopted from an orphenage at a young age, Liotta got hooked on acting in high school. He had various TV credits in the late 1970s and early 80s, with his film debut in The Lonely Lady (1983). Later credits include Something Wild (1986), Field of Dreams (1989), Goodfellas (1990), Cop Land (1997), Hannibal (2001), Blow (2001), Narc (2002), John Q (2002), Identity (2003), Observe and Report (2009), Youth in Revolt (2009), The Details (2011), Killing THem Softly (2012), The Place Beyond the Pines (2012), Shades of Blue (2016-18), The Simpsons (2018, TV-series), Marriage Story (2019), The Many Saints of Newark (2021), Black Bird (2022, TV-series) and many more. Liotta passed away at age 67 in his sleep while on production in the Dominican Republic. R.I.P.

Philip Baker Hall has died

Born in Ohio, Hall didn't start acting until he was 30. His long list of credits include Zabriskie Point (1970), Miami Vice (1987, TV-series), Midnight Run (1988), Ghostbusters II (1989), Cheers (1993, TV-series), Hard Eight (1996), The Rock (1996), Air Force One (1997), Boogie Nights (1997), Seinfeld (1991-98), Rush Hour (1998), The Insider (1999), Magnolia (1999), The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999), Bruce Almighty (2003), Dogville (2003), The Zodiac (2005), Zodiac (2007), Curb Your Enthusiasm (2004-09), Mr. Popper's Penguins (2011), Modern Family (2011-12) and many more. Hall passed away at age 90. R.I.P.

Film Excess - Free Ukraine - Stop Putin - End the war NOW!!

Eagerly anticipating this week ... (15-24)

7/02/2016

Embrace of the Serpent/El Abrazo de la Serpiente (2015) - Guerra's Amazon meditation is a towering gift to us all

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Eagerly anticipating this week ... (14-24)

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