At the risk of appearing shallow, I have to say Embrace the Serpent wasn’t as awe inspiring as some reported (or nominated as in the Oscars).
Maybe it was the cardboard performance of Brionne Davis, who in an authentically created South America filmed beautifully in black and white, here comes a guy who looks like he should stick to toothpaste commercials. Not much better was the other main Caucasian actor Jan Bijvoet as pretentious as his acting.
The tales of the tragic lives of natives at the hands of greedy rubber tree plant interlopers was powerful. Equally sad were the narcissists masquerading as men of God. Maybe choosing bad actors for those roles was done on purpose, magnifying the whites as more asinine.
My favorite scene was the shaman mocking the ‘whites’ for lugging material possessions over the jungle’s rough terrain. As I take off for NYC to see my son, I’ll be similarly chagrin watching derelicts drag half their houses to stuff into the overhead bins. Maybe I need a coffee.
