El Abrazo De La Serpiente (2015): When Did Mankind Lose Track Of Nature?
To leave everything behind and go somewhere wild, like a child guided only by his dreams.
Along the journey discover each fragment, in solitude and absolute silence, of who you are.
Wandering as a nomad all through said dreams.
Some lose their way and never come back, but those who succeed are ready to face anything.
As it is said winners are those who write history . However, it’s always intriguing to catch sight of a different perspective. In his El abrazo de la serpiente, Colombian writer-director Ciro Guerra brings out an endearing depiction of the other side of colonialism, letting the schism between the Westerners and Indigenous emerge in prodigious dialogues.
What appears as an ethnographic journey through the multiple hearts of the Amazon region conceals a much deeper knowledge, which the deadly violence of European colonizers driven by the thirst for rubber nearly ripped off.
Capturing a sequence of breath-taking locations, the black & white cinematography delivers a timeless harmony between man and nature. This unique bond reveals itself through the words of Karamakate, a Coihuano shaman, who happens to be the last survivor of his tribe.
Inspired by the journals of the German ethnographer Theodore Koch-Grunberg (Theodore Von Martius in the picture) and the American botanic Richard Evans Schults (Evans), the story is carried out in two parallel narratives cutting between 1909 and 1940. On both paths, the shaman agrees to accompany the scientists in their search for a sacred plant, the Yacruna, an ancient flower with curative powers.
The young Karamakate is resentful, filled with rage against the white destroyers. He agrees to help Theo and Manduca (a liberated indigenous, Theo’s companion and helper since he is suffering from a fatal illness) as the German man convinces him that other Coihuanos are still alive. The shaman is an incredible resource, he knows nature as he was a part of it, and he respects every sacred prohibition. He lives and communicates with the jungle.
The jungle is fragile. If you attack, she will harm you.
You cannot hunt for meat or fish until the rains come. Cannot tear away roots.
In case of need, we ask the Animal Maester.
White people are like ants, they eat everything until there is nothing left to eat and die fat.
The old Karamakate is another man, he still lives by himself in the forest, drawing sacred dreams on the rocks but he has forgotten the meanings. Before the jungle spoke to him, he lost the hearing.
He laments to have become a chullachaqui, another self with equal appearances but hollow in his nature. He lost his memories, and was left wandering aimlessly in the world like a ghost lost in time.
He agrees to go with Evans to find himself again.
Each character is unconsciously on their path towards themselves and themselves only, not much different from a child caught in a daydream: Theo’s health, Evans’ spirituality, the young Karamakate wants to find his people, the old man crying for his faint memories.
Across the forest, the souls of those implied waver between the enchanting innocence of the thousand banks of the Rio and the silent violence of the Western hand’s scarring-off diversity.
To watch this picture there are no mandatories, being human will do the trick. At this point, some questions arise.
On a human level, are Westerners and Indigenous strangers or more similar than we’d expect? How can we still call somebody a stranger after having shared even tiny a look of complicity?
Whilst there are inevitable deviations between a common way of being inhabitants of the same Earth, they both share deep humanity which cannot be erased by the pretences of cultural diversity. What Theo, Manduca and Karamakate live by in their journey requires cooperation. Manduca might be interpreted as a pivotal character between the ethnographer and the shaman.
