---
title: "Embrace of the Serpent"
year: 2015
kind: "film"
canonical: "https://film.one/film/embrace-of-the-serpent"
fi1m_score: 82
critics_score: 79
critics_reviews: 21
published: "2026-09-17T12:35:46.179760+00:00"
updated: "2026-09-17T12:36:22.109396+00:00"
region: "US"
licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL."
---

# Embrace of the Serpent (2015)

Directed by Ciro Guerra · 2h 05m · Drama, Adventure

**Fi1m score: 82** · Critics 79 from 21 reviews

*In a sentence:* Two scientists paddle upriver for a sacred plant; their guide would rather they went home, and says so

> Ciro Guerra’s Amazon journey, shot in pewter black and white by David Gallego, follows two scientists decades apart and the shaman who reluctantly guides both. It is grave, strange and often beautiful, and it says its point out loud too often.

## Synopsis

The Colombian Amazon, early in the twentieth century. Karamakate (Nilbio Torres), a young shaman who believes himself the last of his people, lives alone on the riverbank and wants nothing to do with white men. A canoe brings him Theodor Koch-Grunberg (Jan Bijvoet), a German ethnographer dying of fever, and Manduca (Yauenkü Miguee), the indigenous companion who has carried him this far. Theo needs yakruna, a sacred plant only Karamakate can find. Karamakate refuses, then agrees when Theo says survivors of his tribe live upriver. Decades later, an older Karamakate (Antonio Bolívar), who has forgotten most of what he knew, is visited by Richard Evans Schultes (Brionne Davis), an American botanist carrying Theo’s diary and asking for the same plant.

## Review

Ciro Guerra’s *Embrace of the Serpent* takes the oldest story in the jungle-adventure book, a white man going upriver in search of something he cannot find alone, and gives the film to the man in the front of the canoe. Written by Guerra with Jacques Toulemonde Vidal and drawn from the diaries of two real scientists, it runs two journeys side by side. In one, the young shaman Karamakate (Nilbio Torres) guides the dying German ethnographer Theodor Koch-Grunberg (Jan Bijvoet) towards a curative plant. In the other, decades later, an old Karamakate (Antonio Bolívar) makes the same trip with the American botanist Richard Evans Schultes (Brionne Davis), who has read Theo’s diary. We recommend it, and warmly, with one caveat that grew on us as the film went on.

Etienne Boussac cuts between the two journeys on the river itself. A bend, a rock, a stretch of flat water, and the canoe that comes round it carries a different white man and a different Karamakate. Nobody explains the device and nobody needs to. The river has not changed and everything on its banks has, and the cutting keeps saying so without a word of dialogue.

David Gallego shoots it in black and white, and the choice is the making of the film. The forest is not green; it is a grey wall, and the river is a sheet of pewter with the sky in it. Skin is lit so that Karamakate, in the paint and feathers Catherine Rodríguez gives him, looks carved rather than photographed, while Theo’s linen and boots read as a costume he cannot take off. Nascuy Linares mostly stands aside for insects, water and birds, and when his score does arrive it is low and held. The Amazon never once looks like a holiday.

Torres plays the young Karamakate as a furious man who has decided the whites deserve nothing and keeps being surprised into giving them something. He looks at Theo’s trunks of specimens the way we might look at a burglar’s sack. Bolívar’s old Karamakate is the better performance and the sadder one: he calls himself a chullachaqui, a hollow copy of a man who wanders the forest without memories, and he plays it with a stillness that takes a while to read as grief. Bijvoet gives Theo a real decency, a man who loves the people he is cataloguing and still cannot leave a single box behind. Davis has the thinner part, and Schultes stays a stiff, courteous outline; his half of the film is where we occasionally checked the time.

The first act has a scene we have not shaken. The canoe pulls in at a rubber station, the trees scored and bleeding white, and a one-armed man (José Sabogal) crawls out of the undergrowth and begs to be killed. We were horrified, and what did it was how little the film shows: the quiet, the wrecked trees, and the way Karamakate looks at him before he answers. Shortly afterwards the travellers reach a mission where Luigi Sciamanna’s missionary keeps indigenous boys in white smocks, forbids their language and beats them for using it. Angélica Perea’s production design makes the mission a whitewashed compound in a clearing, and it looks like a prison.

Now the caveat. The film says its point out loud, and then says it again. Karamakate tells Theo he is the sickness he has come to cure; later somebody explains that the white man cannot listen; later still the jungle is credited with knowing what the visitors do not. The best of these exchanges, an argument over whether Theo should let a village keep the compass they have taken from him, works because both men are right. By the third pronouncement we had understood, and the handful of mixed reviews make the same complaint. We think they undersell how much else is here, but they have a point.

Set against Herzog’s [*Aguirre, the Wrath of God*](https://film.one/film/aguirre-the-wrath-of-god), the standard for films about Europeans coming apart on a South American river, this is calmer, and its subject is theft. At 125 minutes it is a little long in the second half, and there is a stretch late on, which we will not describe, that some viewers will find silly. We did not.

It is a 15 certificate. The violence is brief and mostly off screen, and it hurt more for that. Watch it in as dark a room as you can manage; Gallego’s greys need it.

*Fi1m score 82, published 17 September 2026.*

## What the critics say

The reviews are almost unanimous in their approval. Most critics praise the black-and-white photography of the river journeys above everything else, and nearly as many single out the decision to tell an Amazon adventure story from the point of view of the shaman Karamakate rather than the European explorers he guides. The two timelines are widely admired for how they are cut together, and several critics pick out the closing colour sequence as the moment the film pays off its long, slow build.

The reservations are small and cluster in two places. Several find the second half too long and the structure loose, closer to a string of episodes than a story. A smaller group thinks the film underlines its anti-colonial point too often: The Times gives it three stars for saying the same thing repeatedly, and The AV Club calls it an academic exercise. The spread is narrow, with no negative reviews and only one mixed.

### Reviews we read (21)

- **Sight and Sound**, Demetrios Matheou (90/100, inferred): The critic calls the film a near-faultless anthropological adventure and character mystery that offers a poignant condemnation of colonialism as a teemingly rich tribute to a lost world. It singles out the indigenous shaman protagonist and the crisp, sumptuous black-and-white photography for particular praise. [Read](https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-sound/reviews/embrace-serpent-review-true-amazonian-treasure)
- **The Guardian**, Peter Bradshaw (90/100, inferred): The critic praises the film's dreamlike, psychedelic exploration of two parallel expeditions through the Amazon, reversing typical imperialist perspectives via the shaman Karamakate as guide. It highlights the rich character of Karamakate and the film's evocative black-and-white imagery and cultural commentary. [Read](https://www.theguardian.com/film/2016/feb/17/embrace-of-the-serpent-review-ciro-guerra-colombian-amazon)
- **The New York Times**, Stephen Holden (NYT Critic’s Pick): The critic praises the film as majestic and spellbinding for its deconstruction of colonial horror through the eyes of a shaman confronting the despoliation of the Amazon. It singles out the striking black-and-white cinematography of the river journeys and the morally complex central figure of Karamakate. [Read](https://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/17/movies/review-embrace-of-the-serpent-where-majesty-meets-monstrosity.html)
- **Empire**, Will Lawrence (85/100, inferred): The film is a haunting, beautifully shot work that blends mystical and surreal elements with real-life explorer journals. It contrasts Western and indigenous views of time through two journeys along the Amazon. [Read](https://www.empireonline.com/movies/reviews/embrace-serpent-review/)
- **Los Angeles Times**, Kenneth Turan (85/100, inferred): The critic calls the film beautiful, strange, and disturbing as a lament and warning about destroyed Amazon tribes, blending a passionate attack on invasive capitalism with an adventure story. It singles out the strikingly photographed black-and-white epic and the charisma of the actors playing the shaman across two timelines. [Read](https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/movies/la-et-mn-embrace-serpent-review-20160219-column.html)
- **Evening Standard**, Charlotte O'Sullivan (80/100, inferred): Watching the film is like flicking through a family album while on drugs: intimate and bizarre. Guerra uses humour and elegant monochrome visuals to portray a complex shaman who is the last of his tribe. [Read](https://www.standard.co.uk/culture/film/embrace-of-the-serpent-film-review-the-last-of-the-shamans-told-in-black-and-white-a3268666.html)
- **Film Comment**, Violet Lucca (80/100, inferred): The film turns the traditional Amazon adventure yarn on its head by centering an indigenous protagonist and shooting in black and white. It offers a poetic corrective to colonialist images while depicting the ravages of rubber barons and ending on a visually striking note. [Read](https://www.filmcomment.com/article/embrace-of-the-serpent-ciro-guerra-review/)
- **Little White Lies**, Matt Thrift (4/4/4): The critic hails the film as one of the year’s most potent and strikingly original, an exquisitely rendered study of colonialism, memory and cultural erasure. It singles out the complex dual-timeline structure and the mind-expanding final colour sequence for praise. [Read](https://lwlies.com/reviews/embrace-of-the-serpent/)
- **Slant Magazine**, Steve Macfarlane (80/100, inferred): The critic highlights the film's ambitious scope tracing the domino effects of colonial violence across generations and its just and angry correctivism, while noting excesses in arthouse symmetry. [Read](https://www.slantmagazine.com/film/embrace-of-the-serpent/)
- **The New Yorker**, Richard Brody (80/100, inferred): The critic describes the film as fanatically detailed and starkly visionary in dramatizing a shaman's encounters with European explorers. It singles out the poised black-and-white images and the soundtrack evoking the harsh environment alongside sharp dialogue on clashing worldviews. [Read](https://www.newyorker.com/goings-on-about-town/movies/embrace-of-the-serpent-2)
- **Time Out**, Tom Huddleston (4/5): The critic describes the film as unique and intoxicating, an art movie that grips like a thriller and plays like Apocalypse Now in a dugout canoe. It singles out the dreamlike, episodic road movie structure and the cosmic, mind-expanding finale for praise. [Read](https://www.timeout.com/movies/embrace-of-the-serpent)
- **Variety**, Justin Chang (80/100, inferred): The critic lauds the visually majestic film for paying tribute to lost Amazon cultures through its bifurcated narrative of colonial destruction. It singles out the transfixing power of the black-and-white imagery and the film's moral conviction while noting some narrative longueurs. [Read](https://variety.com/2015/film/festivals/film-review-the-embrace-of-the-serpent-1201510916/)
- **Screen Daily** (70/100, inferred): The critic finds the sublime and the insane engaging traveling companions in this widescreen black-and-white odyssey that slowly transitions from realism to the fantastical. It singles out the interweaving narratives and hypnotic grandeur for praise while noting slow pacing early on. [Read](https://www.screendaily.com/reviews/embrace-of-the-serpent-review/5088213.article)
- **The AV Club**, Ignatiy Vishnevetsky (B-): The film is a head trip that explains itself too much, shrewd at tweaking colonial fantasy clichés but ultimately an academic exercise full of stand-ins and signifiers. [Read](https://www.avclub.com/embrace-of-the-serpent-is-a-head-trip-that-explains-its-1798186662)
- **The Hollywood Reporter**, Jordan Mintzer (70/100, inferred): The critic praises the visually mesmerizing exploration of man, nature and the destructive powers of colonialism along with knockout black-and-white cinematography. It notes the film runs a tad too long in its second half but remains absorbing. [Read](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/general-news/embrace-serpent-el-abrazo-de-795876/)
- **Vulture** (70/100, inferred): The critic finds it an entrancing odyssey with an invigorating reverse-angle perspective on colonialism's poisonous effects, though it wobbles like a shaggy-dog story whose detours prove the real story; praises the astounding images. [Read](https://www.vulture.com/2016/02/movie-review-embrace-of-the-serpent.html)
- **The Times**, Kevin Maher (★★★☆☆): The critic finds the film breathtakingly gorgeous in monochrome but criticizes it for repeatedly hammering home the message that colonialism is bad. It notes the historical basis and strong visuals while finding the messaging overly familiar. [Read](https://www.thetimes.com/uk/history/article/embrace-of-the-serpent-rsz85wlwf)
- **The Playlist**, The Playlist Staff (A): The critic calls the film a work of art and one of the most singular cinematic experiences, praising its unearthly beauty, ancient wisdom, and intimate portrayal of colonialism's impact through individual stories. [Read](https://theplaylist.net/review-embrace-of-the-serpent-is-a-work-of-art-and-a-singular-cinematic-experience-20160218/)
- **Consequence** (85/100, inferred): The critic praises the film's surreal and transformative journey through the Amazon, highlighting its poetic imagery and exploration of memory, identity, and humanity's destructive impact. They single out the black-and-white cinematography and the focus on the indigenous protagonist Karamakate as elements that make it a powerful, belief-shaking experience. [Read](https://consequence.net/2016/03/film-review-embrace-of-the-serpent/)
- **Eye for Film**, Rebecca Naughten (85/100, inferred): The critic praises the film's skilful entwining of two eras from the shaman's perspective, giving history back to indigenous people and serving as a testament to lost cultures and traditions. [Read](https://www.eyeforfilm.co.uk/review/embrace-of-the-serpent-2015-film-review-by-rebecca-naughten)
- **HeyUGuys**, Stefan Pape (4/5): The critic finds the film a tremendously absorbing and mesmeric affair, spellbinding in its monochrome presentation and intelligent interweaving of parallel expeditions, though loose on narrative structure. [Read](https://www.heyuguys.com/embrace-of-the-serpent-review/)

## Details

- **Director:** Ciro Guerra
- **Director:** Ciro Guerra
- **Writer:** Jacques Toulemonde Vidal, Ciro Guerra
- **Cinematography:** David Gallego
- **Editor:** Etienne Boussac
- **Music:** Nascuy Linares
- **Production design:** Angélica Perea
- **Costume design:** Catherine Rodríguez
- **Producer:** Cristina Gallego
- **Cast:** Nilbio Torres as Karamakate (Young); Antonio Bolívar as Karamakate (Old); Jan Bijvoet as Theodor Koch-Grunberg; Brionne Davis as Richard Evans Schultes; Yauenkü Miguee as Manduca; Luigi Sciamanna as The Missionary; Nicolás Cancino as The Messiah; Pediwake Daniel Martínez as Santiago
- **Runtime:** 2h 05m
- **Release (the US):** 17 February 2016
- **Genres:** Drama, Adventure
- **Budget:** $1 million
- **Box office:** $1 million
- **Trailer:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ff7TcnqHUc

## Where to watch in the US

- Tubi: free, hd
- Amazon Prime Video: add-on
- The Roku Channel: add-on, hd
- Amazon Prime Video: rent $2.99, sd
- Apple TV: rent $3.99, hd
- Apple TV: buy $4.99, hd
- Amazon Prime Video: buy $7.99, sd

*Checked 2026-09-17.*

Also available in: AU, CA, DE, ES, FR, GB, IE, IT, NZ, US. Add `?region=XX` to this URL for another country.

## Awards

- Academy Awards 2016: Best International Feature Film (nominated)
- Alfred P. Sloan Prize 2016: Alfred P. Sloan Prize (won)
- IFFR audience award 2016: IFFR audience award (nominated)
- International Submission to the Academy Awards 2016: International Submission to the Academy Awards (nominated)

## If you liked this

- *Aguirre, the Wrath of God* (1972), Fi1m 91: Herzog’s conquistadors drift downriver into madness; the film this one is quietly answering. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/aguirre-the-wrath-of-god.md)
- *Zama* (2017): A colonial official waits for a transfer that never comes; dry, strange and exact.
- *Tabu* (2012): Portuguese Africa remembered in silent black and white; colonial guilt as a love story.
- *Ten Canoes* (2006): An Aboriginal story told in its own language and rhythm, with room for jokes.
- *Birds of Passage* (2018): Guerra and Cristina Gallego on the Colombian drug trade as Wayuu family tragedy. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/birds-of-passage.md)

---
© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/film/embrace-of-the-serpent