Ciro Guerra’s Embrace of the Serpent, is a unique film experience that transcends preconceptions about almost any genre it could fit under. It’s a rich adventure story that deals with the clash of two different cultures, a metaphysical essay on the human species’ role in the larger scheme of things, and a heartbreaking character study of a man who must come to terms with being the last of his kind. Inspired by the real life journals of twentieth century explorers Theodor Koch-Grünberg (Jan Bijvoet) and Richard Evan Schultes (Brionne Davis), separated by time but united by their fascination with the Amazon jungle, the film follows their parallel quests, separated by time, for a mysterious source of life known as yakruna. Their guide happens to be the same man, a Cohiuano named Karamakate (played by Nilbio Torres as a young man, and by Antonio Bolivar later in life) who is the last of his tribe.
Shot in breathtaking black and white, the film makes viewers feel as if they’re watching the jungle for the very first time. This is Guerra’s third feature length, and as of 2016, his most successful in terms of worldwide recognition, it received a warm welcome at the 2015 Cannes Film Festival, which was followed by prizes from the Costa Rica International Film Festival and the Hamptons International Film Festival, not to mention an Oscar nomination for Best Foreign Language Film. As the film opens commercially in the United States, I had the opportunity to talk to the fascinating Guerra.
The Wind Journeys and Embrace of the Serpent are both about journeys to the past. What attracted you to tell these stories?
The structure of journey films is very appealing to me because it connects different stories from different cultures, that have been repeated throughout human history. Many of Colombia’s ancestral cultures were nomadic, and had very profound stories about journeys which they saw as metaphors for life. I also feel Colombians have ancestors who have all been travelers, people who have come from different parts of the world. I’m very interested in the idea of humans as beings who wander.
You take the idea of human origin to a place of commonality that has been compared to 2001: A Space Odyssey, and I found this to be quite relevant politically in the United States today. I’m sure making the film you’re not thinking about specific political stances, but has the topic of immigration come up as you’ve shown the film in America?
That’s a reading I never thought about when I made the film. This is a film that allows audience members all over the world to have readings that have truly surprised me. They open the film up to many interpretations, it’s a film that has a very rich dialogue with audience members. They bring a lot of their own experience to the film, and that’s something that’s served me as a learning experience.
You’ve mentioned that the jungle was recreated completely because the Amazon is no longer virgin. What is the role of film when it comes to rescuing things that disappear?
By its own nature, film is an art of memory. What we see onscreen are memories, moments that were sculpted, or collected, specific moments shot at different times that were then assembled together. We’re always watching fragments of time, which makes them memories. They have a value in the future, can you imagine that we’d have the chance to watch a film made one thousand years ago? What would it tell us about that world? Films are a gift we’re giving future generations.
The explorers become mythical, but it’s quite likely that none of the native people will become mythical in Germany or in the USA, since historically Western cultures destroyed everything they thought of as pagan or prehistoric. Is this a dynamic that has remained throughout the years?
That’s yet another very interesting interpretation, we really didn’t have any of these premeditated when we made the film. The film was made with a lot of intuition, not everything about it was calculated, it’s an open film. I think that makes it a richer film because it cultivates a more active, more imaginative viewer.
What would you say surprised you the most about the Amazon?
Seeing the profound relationship its inhabitants have with it, and the way they know how to ask the jungle for permission. If you respect it, it’s a place that opens up to you and gives you things. It gave us unique moments we were able to capture in our film. But if you go against it, it’s a place that can destroy you. Being in the middle of this symbiotic relationship between men and their surroundings gave me a new way to see the world.
The film touches on mortality. The first explorer we meet is dying. The indigenous culture will die. Does writing a film like this force you to think about your own mortality?
That wasn’t something I had in mind. I was wondering more about what our destiny as a species was. Is our fate to kill each other in a cyclical way for all of eternity? Or through science and art will we find a different way? Something that unites us.
Are there any initiatives to use the film as a way to help rescue the rainforest?
The film’s message transcends the purely ecological. I would be happy if the film helped the environment but to only focus on this would prove reductive, given how rich the cosmology of these ancient civilizations is.
You’ve mentioned a Colombian Golden Age of cinema. What filmmakers should we keep an eye on?
César Acevedo, Oscar ruiz Navia, Franco Lolli, they’re all very strong filmmakers who are injecting new life into Colombian cinema.
You have said that you watch a film a day. So, which are your favorite films from among this year’s Oscar nominees?
Joshua Oppenheimer’s The Look of Silence, it’s a documentary that needs to be seen by as many people as possible.
What does the Oscar nomination mean for Colombia and your career?
It’s a pleasant reward for a film we made with love and effort. More than any award, what matters it’s it will help us bring the film to new audiences, and that fills me with happiness.
Embrace of the Serpent is now in theaters.
