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Poster for Embrace of the Serpent

Embrace of the Serpent

A poetic and haunting journey into a lost world.

2015 · 2h 5m · NOT RATED Adventure, Drama
Directed by Ciro Guerra

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Overview

The epic story of the first contact, encounter, approach, betrayal and, eventually, life-transcending friendship, between Karamakate, an Amazonian shaman, last survivor of his people, and two scientists that, over the course of 40 years, travel through the Amazon in search of a sacred plant that can heal them. Inspired by the journals of the first explorers of the Colombian Amazon, Theodor Koch-Grunberg and Richard Evans Schultes.

Director and cast

Critics on Rotten Tomatoes

Top critics, in their words

All reviews
Fresh

Unique and intoxicating, an art movie that grips like a thriller.

Tom Huddleston, Time Out
Fresh

It is gripping, challenging, engrossing stuff, beginning to end. Seriously, what a film.

Tom Long, Detroit News
Fresh

The film moves into psychedelic and violent territory, creating a perspective that is equally unreal and unforgettable.

Colin Covert, Minneapolis Star Tribune
Fresh

[Karamakate is] a frankly great character in a thoroughly gripping film.

Matthew Lickona, San Diego Reader
Fresh

This stunning historical drama, shot mainly in black and white across the Amazon region of Colombia, focuses on a shaman who's approached at different points by white men seeking medicinal substances.

J. R. Jones, Chicago Reader

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