by Denise Zmekhol
Although Colombia’s Embrace of the Serpent didn’t win an Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film – that went to Hungary’s Son of Saul – Serpent and its director, Ciro Guerra, won a host of critical plaudits and audience acclaim. Recently, Denise Zmekhol interviewed the filmmaker for EatDrinkFilms.
Denise Zmekhol for EDF: What inspired you to make this film?
Beautifully shot in black and white – a rarity these days – Ciro Guerro’s Embrace of the Serpent is Columbia’s nominee for Best Foreign Language Film, and deservedly so. An “elegy for lost cultures and an indictment of exploitation,” this saga of human endurance in the wilderness – also the theme of fellow Oscar nominee The Revenant – plays like “a rainforest fever dream.” Critics Daniel Barnes and Dennis Harvey present their takes on this vivid physical adventure, which opens across North America in February and March.
eatdrinkfilms.com 