BFLF nominee, Ciro Guerra's EMBRACE OF THE SERPENT is some kind of masterpiece

Little wonder this new film, EMBRACE OF THE SERPENT -- from Colombia and one of the five nominees for the recent Best Foreign Language Film Oscar-- made the Academy's cut. It's one of those movies you will have seen nothing quite like: A two-hour-plus trip down (or is it up?) the Amazon, with a native guide the likes of which you also will not have encountered, in which the voyage is split into two tours of duty, with two different white explorers but the same Shaman guide. This is because these trips take place maybe 40 or 50 years apart.

As directed and co-written (with Jacques Toulemonde Vidal) by Ciro Guerra , shown at and shot in the kind of black-and-white cinematography (by David Gallego) that will pin your eyes to the enormous beauty on screen and hold them there for the film's full 125-minute running time, this movie moves back and forth between time periods with ease and skill, combining a documentary-like look and feel with so much exotic beauty and the kind of simple, effective storytelling that we don't really get so much of anymore.

Beginning with words from the diary of a German explorer of the Amazon (the film is based on the travel diaries of Theodore Koch Grunberg, 1872-1924, and Richard Evans Schultes, 1915-2001), the film begins as a character named Theodore, near death, is brought by his guide, Manduca (played by Yauenkü Migue), to a native shaman, Karamakate, who is then begged to save the explorer's life.

Karamakate, played as the younger man by the impressively built and quietly charismatic actor, Nilbio Torres, above, is slowly persuaded to help bring Theodore (Jan Bijvoet, below, center) back to life and then further help him to find the famous healing plant called Yakruma.

Their search takes them, along with Manduca, up the famous river with various stops along the way -- one of which brings our crew into New World religion via a Capuchin monk who is converting and then "educating" the pagan natives. During all this we learn more surprises about our threesome, as they try educating these youngsters -- that monk, too -- along the real path of righteousness.

Back in more modern times, we view with increasing alarm that same monastery, and the man who now runs the place, as our other "hero," Evan (Brione Davis, above) and the older version of Karamakate are taken prisoner there and witness -- in fact, contribute to -- some awful goings-on. It is interesting that religion accounts for the most violent parts of the film.

Friendship, exploration and culture clash provide much of the movie's theme, yet its real message -- and yes, it sho 'nuff has one -- is utterly vital to us today. As the film has moved along, we've heard and seen snippets of Colonialism, rubber plantations, torture, and more, and we're told, via the two Karamakates, of a kind of contract with nature, land and water that must not be broken.

Then, in one brief exchange, one native tells the other, "If we cannot get the whites to learn, it will be the end of everything." Well, they haven't learned, and the end is now in sight. Embrace of the Serpent does not hammer home its lesson, though. The finale, in fact, presents on of the most beautiful views of a leopard ever seen on film, as our more modern travelers finally reach their destination, symbolically and geographically.

Evan gets a dose of the drug he's been wanting, has his "trip" (some color is at last shown us, though it was not really necessary), and the lesson has been taught. What will happen after, we can only hope. The movie, a one-of-a-kind masterpiece, may be the most beautiful obituary ever filmed.

Embrace of the Serpent, released via Oscilloscope Laboratories, after opening in New York, Los Angeles and elsewhere across the country, will play here in Southern Florida beginning this Friday, March 11, in Miami at the O Cinema, the Miami Beach Cinematheque and the Bill Cosford Cinema (it will also play the Tower Theater in Miami come March 14); and in Hollywood at the Cinema Paradiso. On March 18 it will hit Lake Worth at the Lake Worth Playhouse and Boca Raton at the Living Room Theaters. No matter where you live across the country, the movie is likely to show up there. Click here then click SCREENINGS on the bar atop the page to see all currently scheduled playdates, with cities/theaters listed.

THE VANISHED ELEPHANT: Javier Fuentes-León's art film about love and identity arrives

It's being marketed as some kind of "thriller," with mentions of movies on the order of Tell No One and The Secret in Their Eyes tossed in for good measure. Comparisons, as they say, are odious, and so far as the new Spanish-language film from Peru/Columbia/ Spain, THE VANISHED ELEPHANT, is concerned, these do the movie little justice and, in fact, just might sink it once this comparative word-of-mouth gets out. Tell No One was a hugely intricate and fast-moving thriller, and one of, if not the most-successful-at-the-boxoffice foreign language film of its decade. More slow-moving, The Secret in Their Eyes, was also a kind of mystery thriller that built to a whopping and surprising conclusion (in addition to walking away with Best Foreign Language Film that year).

As written and directed by Javier Fuentes-León (shown at left, who gave us the bisexual drama about death and the closet, Undertow, some years back), The Vanished Elephant comes much closer to a genuine "art" film -- a kind of puzzle about the artistic process, identity, love and narcissism -- which poses as a mystery only in the sense that all of our identities are, finally, mysterious. This is also quite a beautiful film to view, one of the most visually compelling I have seen in the past year or so. I believe Señor Fuentes-León means this visual beauty to be part of the puzzle, as well as the film's fun. It is, in both cases.

We come back again and again to visuals that remind us of former visuals and/or begin to fill in certain blanks -- sometimes literally, at other times symbolically. As our hero, a cop-turned-mystery-writer, Edo (a commanding, encompassing performance by Salvador del Solar, above) tries to unravel the disappearance of his girlfriend (played by Vanessa Saba, below), some years previous, he comes up against quite an arsenal of oddities.

Chief among these is a man who appears to be impersonating the leading character, Rafael Pineda (Lucho Cáceres, below, right), in the series of popular mystery novels that Edo writes. There is also a District attorney set on proving that Edo was the person responsible for his girlfriend's disappearance, a photographer who has organized a new exhibit around Edo's famous novels, and other possible red herrings.

The "elephant" of the title is found in a museum painting that doubles as a rock sculpture relic somewhat destroyed during a famous earthquake that took a huge death toll just at the time of that Edo's girlfriend went missing.

Deaths begin to pile up, and yet the movie never seems to become any kind of realistic mystery. Instead the clues lead back and back again to our Edo, and Señor del Solar's quiet charisma and persuasive acting keeps us both on point and on hold as the mystery continues to be revealed.

As is sometimes the case, it's the journey rather than the destination that makes The Vanished Elephant as intriguing as it is. When we reach the finale, it is probably del Solar's handsome, troubled face that counts for most, making this movie about identity and losing oneself in grief and fantasy so unusually compelling -- even, finally, quite moving and sad.

From Oscilloscope Laboratories and running 109 minutes, The Vanished Elephant opens here in South Florida this Friday, March 4, at the Bill Cosford Cinema in Coral Gables and the Cinema Paradiso in Hollywood. To see further playdates, cities and theaters, click here then scroll down.

Alejandro Landes' PORFIRIO: yet another uniquely successful doc-plus-narrative mix

Among the many other delights that the year 2005 brought us was the news story "Paralyzed man in diapers hijacks plane to Bogota." (That news story is here.) "Ah, those Colombians!" thought some of us at the time. A Brazilian filmmaker named Alejandro Landes, shown below, found himself fascinated by that headline, as well, but he has spent five years first getting to the bottom of it and then making a movie -- PORTFIRIO -- about it, starring the actual participants in the event: the wheel-chair-bound father named Porfirio Ramirez Aldana; his then-teenage son Jarlinsson, whom he affectionately calls Lissin; and their next-door neighbor and occasional love interest for dad, a zoftig, kindly and amusing young woman they call Jasbleidy, and who is played, I believe, by the woman herself, Yor Jasbleidy Santos.

The reason for the highjacking, as we soon come to learn, can be seen on the poster above: that prominent scar over the hole made by the bullet shot by the police that, if I understood correctly, still remains inside Porfirio's body. This fellow, a farmer and cattleman at the time, had nothing to do with this shoot-out. He was simply in the wrong place at the precise time to become another piece of collateral damage, one that must ever remain in that wheelchair.

Evidently the government had made some promises, but nothing has transpired, and so Porfirio has hired a lawyer to proceed. As the movie makes quite clear, the legal eagle seems not to be doing anything to help the situation, and so, over time, our hero -- and he is exactly that -- concocts a plan....

Before we get anywhere near that plan, however (the movie spends only its final 15 minutes at the airport), we get to know Porfirio, Lissin and Jasbleidy (who is shown below, right) and the life that our hero leads, day to day. It ain't fun, but so full of piss and vinegar is Porfirio, so lively, funny, angry, sorry-for-himself, sweet and -- hell -- even sexy is this guy that we're soon in his corner and rooting for him absolutely.

Filmmaker Landes does not go in for exposition; he simply plops us into things, and so we wonder at the beginning, who is the man (below) being bathed and attended to, and who is the boy (Lissin, at left) doing the bathing? Eventually, via the film's sparse dialog and our using our noggin, we figure it out. A snake oil salesman makes a visit. The family dog does his thing, too. ("You're the only one who has not betrayed me," notes Porfirio to the animal in a moment of fully understandable self-pity.)

Although I wished at times that Landes has speeded his 101-minute movie up (ten minutes could easily be cut by judicious trimming), I suspect that the filmmaker wanted to put us far enough inside Porfirio's life and skin so that we experience things at approximately the same pace he does. And so we do, but this is tricky. While the time we put in is generally well spent and interesting, some viewers will have gotten the "moment" and the one after, and the one after that a bit before the filmmaker decides to cut away. This sort of excess begins to pile up.

Still, so far inside the mind and heart of this man do we dig that, on balance, the film is worth those extra minutes. Around halfway along, Porfirio manages, with a huge effort, to get into his wheel-chair by himself and go out, along with his dog (above), to visit his lawyer, the swine. This is one hell of a scene, followed by another interesting one that takes place at the local Bingo parlor (below).

There are certainly some others too. One such has Portfirio knoc-king on Jasbleidy's door and having her bring him inside for a little nooky. There he is, hardening his cock with his hand, and a moment later she's on top of him and they're going at it without an ounce of shame, which is absolutely right. Landes films it all in a manner that allows us to watch but never leer, so we don't feel the least bit embarrassed. We're just happy for the guy -- and for her, too.

As I say, it is not until the final fifteen minutes that we hit the airport for the big event. Since this movie has a minimal budget, we don't expect any big-deal, Hollywood-like pizzazz. But the way in which Landes preps us for the event and leads us up to it is just about perfect. I think you'll be amused -- no, utterly delighted -- by his subtlety and clever sleight-of-hand.

Porfirio, a very good movie featuring a memorable man, from the relatively new distributor Magic Lantern, opens in New York City this Friday, February 8, at MoMA. (Click here to see screening dates and times.) Other cities and theaters I am sure will follow, once word gets around....

THE COLORS OF THE MOUNTAIN: Carlos César Arbeláez's haunting Colombian film

Has futility ever looked so gorgeous? It's hard to image a more beautiful movie than this one, taking place in the highlands of Colombia, where the colors are bright and true, but the life endured makes that spot between rock and hard place look practically alluring. The award-winning film THE COLORS OF THE MOUNTAIN is the first full-length narrative feature from Carlos César Arbeláez (shown below), a Colombian filmmaker who earlier made a number of television documentaries and a couple of shorts. His command of movie-making is, not surprisingly, quite assured, and he draws very good performances from his mostly fledgling cast of children (his adult actors have more professional resumes).

Arbeláez's cinematogapher is Oscar Jimenez, who did a very unusual little romantic comedy/travel movie called The Art of Travel a few years back. This one is even more beautiful, and part of its enormous push-pull impact is due to the irony of the breathtaking vistas pitted against the despicable political conditions forced upon the locals. Within a few scenes, we're aware of something severely amiss. Though we see no actual fighting, there appears to be near-constant combat between paramilitary troops and the guerrillas. Both groups insist on the loyalty of the indigenous population -- which makes for an impossible situation. The people who live here must commit to one side only, and so will be eventually killed by the other. Fun, huh?

Yet there is some genuine fun, even occasional delight to be found in the lives of the local children whose parents have kept them as far away from danger and concern as possible  As the movie proceeds, this protection collapses, but until then, these young best-friends have some charming times and adventures -- all of which are overlaid and underlaid with trauma. (Note the scene in which one boy shows another his collection of bullets, and a guessing-game ensures.)

Soccer is the kids' main concern, though they seem to do well enough at school. Their teacher, however, is new, quite dedicated and as yet untutored in how bad the sitation is. She'll learn. Meanwhile, the kids' precious soccer ball goes missing in a field that's been land-mined. (How we and they learn of this provides one of the film's biggest surprises -- and one of its only "special effects.") Along the way, we discover how life in this small mountain community works, and how it impacts on the larger city nearby where trade is negotiated and livings are made.

The three children we come to know best are soccer enthusiast Manuel (played by Hernán Mauricio Ocampo, above and below, left, and further above kicking that ball), his older, taller friend Julián (played by Nolberto Sánchez (above, center) and third-wheel Poca Luz, an albino boy with thick glasses (brought to delightful life by Genaro Aristizábal, above, right). Each has his cross to bear, none of which are at all easy. But the kids keep the movie a bit light-hearted, at least.

Señor Arbeláez treads a difficult line between realism and something akin to a "family film." He makes us aware of the danger, and the inordinately fraught situation for the adults, but shows very little direct violence or bloodshed. We see in one late scene the results of this on a local man, and we also hear gun shots in the distance. Adult viewers will put two and two together; children will need some explaining. All in all, the film works -- and better than you might expect. We never learn anything specific about the political situation or the stance of either the military or guerrillas, but so far as the locals are concerned -- and it is they for whom we care -- this does not matter. As the graffitti-atop-grafitti on the schoolhouse wall indicates, both groups want victory for themselves and death for their enemy, while the teacher and her kids want life and peace. Their contribution to that wall, below, proves beautiful and memorable (you'll have to see the fiim to view their gorgeous mural) -- but it certainly will not last.

The Colors of the Mountain, in Spanish with English subtitles and a running time of 88 minutes, opens in New York City at the Cinema Village on Friday, May 6, with other playdates and cities possible over the months to come. Click here, then scroll down to see a complete listing.