EMBRACE OF THE SERPENT (2015) by Ciro Guerra

"It's an absorbing, even thrilling head trip. It is a Heart-of-Darkness voyage of discovery. It is a lament for all the lost plants and peoples of the world." Jessica Kiang (The Playlist)

"Viewed largely through the aggrieved eyes of a shaman whose tribe is on the verge of extinction at the hands of Colombian rubber barons in the 19th and 20th centuries, Embrace of the Serpent, a fantastical mixture of myth and historical reality, shatters lingering illusions of first-world culture as more advanced than any other, except technologically." Stephen Holden (The New York Times)

"This is that rare film that has the power to transform, to shake one’s belief system so thoroughly that one feels like a slightly different person walking out of the theater." Collin Brennan (Consequence)

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🍄😵‍💫🏖 Psychedelic Summer - Part One:
You Have To Become One With It

Letting go. Trust the process. These are key ideas that recur across various avenues of life, whether it be something like the spiritual journeys of the dark night of the soul, psychedelic useage, or simply when one is seeking answers to life's bigger questions, however that may be.

In EMBRACE OF THE SERPENT (El Abrazo de la Serpiente; 2015), these themes make themselves known early on by way of the demeanour that Amazonian shaman Karamakate (played by Nilbio Torres as Young Karamakate and Antonio Bolivar as Old Karamakate; Bolivar being one of the last sixteen known living Ocaina peoples, the primary indigenous language spoken in the film) embodies and tries to teach to the ignorant white colonizers seeking his guidance.

Much like we've seen in real life with white colonialism running rampant across numerous cultures, EMBRACE also explores the idea of (im)balance. Whether it's from environmental perspectives and indigenous spirituality, or the notion of Western progress vs. tradition, we see (im)balance from both the colonial gaze and the indigenous point-of-view constantly at odds with each other in the film. In relation to the psychedelic journey, this is completely on point: the psychedelic journey itself is an internal conflict between old and new, embracing and forgetting, learning and unlearning.

The hero's journey comes into discussion regularly when thinking about the psychedelic experience and we see that play out in multiple ways in EMBRACE. I'll share some questions + videos in the comments closer to the discussion surrounding the hero's journey, its relationship to psychedelics, and some essays on the film itself.

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Join us Sunday, July 20 at 10am at the Red Brick Cafe for our first discussion of Psychedelic Summer 🍄😵‍💫🏖

You can stream EMBRACE OF THE SERPENT on Kanopy for free.

Happy watching! 🐍