El Abrazo De La Serpiente (Ciro Guerra, 2015) : Colombia/Venezuela/Argentina

Reviewed by Nathan Pécout. Viewed at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival, at the Lobero Theatre.

El Abrazo De La Serpiente is the third feature film by Colombian director Ciro Guerra. And this third piece of work is an UFO that resembles to nothing that I have seen before.

The film switches multiple times between two parallel stories : the first one is based on the diary wrote by German ethnologist Theodor Köch-Grünberg (pictured as Theo, played by Jan Bijvoet) during his expedition in the Amazon jungle; the second one comes from the diary of American botanist Richard Evans Schultes (Evan in the film, played by Brionne Davis) who followed the steps of his German predecessor in the depth of the jungle. Both of them are looking for the yakruna, a plant that only grows in the heart of the Amazon and possesses healing properties. Theo is dying, and the yakruna is his only hope of recovery. Evan cannot dream, and yakruna is also his only hope to retrieve peace. Both of them are led by Karamakate (Nilbio Torres/Antonio Bolivar), the last survivor of his tribe, at different times of his life. We are unable to determine how many years separate the two stories, and the film will advance to merge the two stories together. Both Theo and Evan are pursuing a personal ritual to achieve peace of mind : they must get rid of all their material goods before drinking the yakruna beverage and complete their shamanic journey under Karamakate’s lead. The merging of these two stories is symbolized at one moment of the film by the absence of a cut between the two narrations : the camera pans across the river (symbolizing the inner spiritual journey, in a similar way as in Apocalypse Now (Francis Ford Coppola, 1979)) from Theo’s boat to Evan’s, making one single entity out of these two men.

The film is thus presented as a travel along the river and in the jungle. And this trip is set in a surreal ambiance, illustrated by many elements of cinematography and mise-en-scène. The long shots and the slow camera movements invite to the contemplation of this mysterious nature. The black-and-white aspect emphasizes on the past and on memories, some very intriguing elements in the film. The slow and self-effacing music and the presence of many motifs related to Native American spirituality and shamanism like the snake at the origin of creation, the psychotropic plant and the inner quest set the mystical atmosphere of the film. The mysticism reaches its peak during a specific scene, where a self-proclaimed white Christ leads a hallucinated mass mixing catholicism and native rituals.

But El Abrazo De La Serpiente is not only an atmospheric or a meditative film. There is also a background to these explorers venturing in the jungle. South America has been suffering from racial conflicts since the arrival of European conquistadors five centuries ago. And conflicts are still present in this film, whereas it is set at the beginning of the XXth century. A very tough sequence shows the brutal evangelization of Amazonian children by a rough catholic monk. The rubber war that decimated Native tribes is evoked several times. Karamakate himself is more than distrustful toward white men. The escape of an entire village out of fear of “the Colombians” says enough about the tensions that surrounded the Amazon jungle at this time.

With El Abrazo De La Serpiente, Ciro Guerra delivers a unique film : a rarely-seen-before blend of history, ethnography, mysticism and sociology that strikes as much by its content than by its form.