Embrace of the Serpent
Oscilloscope Pictures | Release Date: February 17, 2016 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
82
METASCORE
Universal acclaim based on 31 Critic Reviews
Positive:
29
Mixed:
2
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
ConsequenceCollin BrennanMar 10, 2016
This is that rare film that has the power to transform, to shake one’s belief system so thoroughly that one feels like a slightly different person walking out of the theater. Read full review
100
The GuardianJordan HoffmanFeb 18, 2016
Ciro Guerra’s gorgeous picture just has that ripped-from-your-dreams sensibility, where surprising turns float alongside a story you feel like you’ve known your whole life. Embrace of the Serpent is the type of film we’re always searching for, yet seems so obvious once we’ve found it. Read full review
100
The New York TimesStephen HoldenFeb 18, 2016
Viewed largely through the aggrieved eyes of a shaman whose tribe is on the verge of extinction at the hands of Colombian rubber barons in the 19th and 20th centuries, Embrace of the Serpent, a fantastical mixture of myth and historical reality, shatters lingering illusions of first-world culture as more advanced than any other, except technologically. Read full review
100
Village VoiceAlan ScherstuhlFeb 16, 2016
Colombian director Ciro Guerra's Embrace of the Serpent is a legitimate stunner, a river-trip that will mesmerize and jack with you, leaving you not quite certain, at its end, how to go about the rest of your day. Read full review
100
The PlaylistJessica KiangJan 7, 2016
It's an absorbing, even thrilling head trip. It is a Heart-of-Darkness voyage of discovery. It is a lament for all the lost plants and peoples of the world. Read full review
91
Entertainment WeeklyChris NashawatyFeb 17, 2016
While its strange rhythms may not be for everyone, it does provide something unusual in today’s movies: a truly original experience for the mind and the soul. Read full review
91
The Film StageMichael SnydelFeb 14, 2016
The movie is more about how outsiders – whether consciously or unconsciously – exert control. The repercussions of colonialism hover over the text even as these characters have “noble” intentions. Read full review
90
Arizona RepublicBill GoodykoontzMar 10, 2016
Its images are classic, its story immediate and urgent. That's a pretty vital combination. Read full review
90
TimeStephanie ZacharekFeb 19, 2016
The majesty of nature is Embrace of the Serpent’s true star, and Guerra captures the glory of every leaf, every inch of sky, in pearlescent black-and-white as luminous as the lining of a clamshell. In Guerra’s eyes, as in Karamakate’s, the forest is magic itself—and it’s no less remarkable for having sprung from something as lowly as the earth’s soil. Read full review
90
Los Angeles TimesKenneth TuranFeb 18, 2016
Beautiful, strange, disturbing, Embrace of the Serpent is a film with a lot on its mind. Read full review
90
Wall Street JournalJoe MorgensternFeb 18, 2016
The narrative jumps back and forth between the two time frames, rather than telling Karamakate’s story in linear fashion, and these juxtapositions deepen the film’s resonance. Read full review
88
Boston GlobePeter KeoughMar 10, 2016
Though some of the concepts may be New Age boilerplate, the film’s images linger; especially that of the river, the snake devouring us all. Read full review
88
Washington PostStephanie MerryMar 10, 2016
Embrace of the Serpent has some of the most vivid images captured on film in recent memory, and also some of the most haunting. Read full review
83
Christian Science MonitorPeter RainerFeb 26, 2016
Not nearly as great as Herzog’s films, or as monumentally deranged as Coppola’s, it nevertheless casts a spell of its own. It’s one of those films that, at least for me, grows in the memory. Read full review
80
Total FilmTom BondJun 9, 2016
[A] mesmerising film. Read full review
80
Time Out LondonTom HuddlestonJun 9, 2016
Unique and intoxicating, an art movie that grips like a thriller. Read full review
80
EmpireWill LawrenceJun 6, 2016
Though inspired by real-life journals, Guerra’s haunting and beautifully shot film transports us into the realm of the mystical and surreal. Read full review
80
CineVueBen NicholsonJan 7, 2016
The languorous pacing - particularly in the middle section - may lessen the impact on audiences somewhat, and the two-hour runtime seems a little much, but this is important, harrowing and deeply heartfelt lament that deserves to be seen and most definitely heard. Read full review
80
The Hollywood ReporterJordan MintzerJan 7, 2016
If the film runs a tad too long, especially in its second half, Embrace of the Serpent is still an absorbing account of indigenous tribes facing up to colonial incursions, revealing how Westerners are in many ways far behind the native peoples they conquer. Read full review
80
Screen DailyTim GriersonJan 7, 2016
The going can be a bit slow at first, but the interweaving narratives, which comment on (and sometimes echo) each other, begin to develop a hypnotic grandeur. It’s a hell of a trip. Read full review
78
Austin ChronicleMarjorie BaumgartenMar 30, 2016
The film is also comic, mysterious, and structurally ambitious, while offering numerous points of entry and perspective. Read full review
75
The Seattle TimesSoren AndersenMar 10, 2016
Throughout, the fragility of the native cultures and of the rain-forest environment that is their home is underscored by Guerra in this fascinating, melancholy movie. Read full review
75
St. Louis Post-DispatchCalvin WilsonMar 10, 2016
If the film is a bit too slow-paced, it’s also uniquely mesmerizing, with performances that perfectly complement the episodic narrative. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleWalter AddiegoFeb 25, 2016
Creating this kind of otherworldly mood takes exceptional talent, and this is a film worth experiencing. Read full review
75
RogerEbert.comMatt Zoller SeitzFeb 18, 2016
It can't quite seem to get out of its own way. It is intelligent and sensitive and assembled with a great care, and worth watching just for its images of the jungle. Read full review
75
Slant MagazineSteve MacfarlaneFeb 17, 2016
Ciro Guerra's excesses in arthouse symmetry tend to arrive in the service of a just and angry correctivism. Read full review
70
VarietyJustin ChangJan 7, 2016
The film would nonetheless benefit from occasional tightening, its digressions and longueurs occasionally moving beyond the lyrical and into the belabored. Nevertheless, as a vision of the past, “Embrace of the Serpent” offers a stately, striking panorama and an entirely persuasive one. Read full review
67
The A.V. ClubIgnatiy VishnevetskyFeb 17, 2016
One just wishes it weren’t doing all the work for the viewer. Read full review
63
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Kate TaylorFeb 18, 2016
Colombian filmmaker Ciro Guerra’s reimagining of the lives of lost peoples is compelling, but, despite many languorous images of river and jungle, this remains a bookish examination of the themes. Read full review
60
New York Magazine (Vulture)David EdelsteinFeb 19, 2016
It’s another in a long, honorable line of films that chart the poisonous effects of colonialism on indigenous populations and their ecosystems, but with an unusually invigorating perspective, like a reverse-angle "Heart of Darkness." Read full review
50
New York PostFarran Smith NehmeFeb 18, 2016
A sudden lurch into trippy abstraction at the end simply doesn’t work, but for the vast majority of the time this is a strong and original film. Read full review
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