part of “In Case You Missed It…”

“Embrace of the Serpent” (d. Ciro Guerra,Columbia, 2016, 125 min) centers on an Amazonian shaman, the last survivor of his people, and two scientists who are searching the Columbian Amazon for a sacred psychedelic healing plant that attaches itself to rubber trees. Based on the real-life journals of an American biologist Richard Evans Shultes, who is revered as the father of modern ethnobotany, and the German ethnologist and explorer Theodor Koch-Grunberg, and the real-life ravages of colonial exploitation ruthless rubber barons, the film is part documentary and part poetry. And it is gorgeous. Shot along the border of Columbia and Brazil, the intrepid film crew had to content with snakes in the water and the likelihood of contracting horrible diseases. It is also shot in black and white, a surprising choice for a film set in a tropical rainforest, but it works by giving the jungle textures and depth that colors hide.