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.

Carlos Bolado's OLVIDADOS sheds some light on those South American dictators' dirty wars

The 1970s were not a good time for many South America countries, what with one dictator after another -- in Chile, Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay -- cracking down on any perceived rumblings of unrest by the populace: torturing, murdering and finally "disappearing" that portion of the people considered to be a left-wing threat. One of the strengths of the new film, OLVIDADOS (Forgotten), getting its U.S. theatrical debut today in New York City (it opens next month in Los Angeles) is that it demonstrates to a greater extent than I have seen previously in a narrative film how those South American dictators joined forces to do their dirty work, thus making it easier than ever to crush the opposition.

As directed by Mexican filmmaker Carlos Bolado, shown at left, and starring that fine Mexican actor, Damián Alcázar (seen below),  the movie is a Bolivian production, filmed in its home country, as well as in Chile, Argentina and the USA. Among other historically accurate things, it shows how much of the training for this multi-country repression and torture came from the United States, which provided the training and some military -- as well as funding -- to fight this "Communist threat," which is how the USA labeled it, though the general populace of the countries involved might as easily have called it a fight for government by the people.

Señor Alcázar plays José Mendieta, a high-level military Bolivian officer given the job of finding, imprisoning, torturing and obtaining evidence/confessions/names of co-conspirators from within the populace. He does all this with enormous relish and barely a second thought for the lives of the prisoners he and his henchmen destroy. Alcázar is capable of great versatility, from fine comedic acting through nearly all else. Here, he plays the Colonel at two ages: middle and old (in not very good "age" make-up), and is mostly asked to be cruel as his younger self and frightened/guilty in his older incarnation.

It is the rest of the ensemble cast that enliven the movie with their energy and fraught situation. Mostly, they are the victims, and our sympathy goes out to them, along with a good degree of horror at what they must endure. Movies like this -- and we have now seen quite a number of them in both narrative and documentary form -- almost by necessity demand a certain amount of realistic torture. My spouse found the film too much -- torture porn, he called it -- while I felt it did what was necessary to get across the message

The movie gives both sides the opportunity to advance their message (even within the protesters, there is disagreement about how far to go and how much to give up), but when one side accompanies its message with the kind of maiming and murder that so many South Americans were put through, this does tend, rightly I think, to stack the deck against it.

Stylistically, the film has enough flourish to make it easy to sit through. The torture is intercut with good memories from the victims' lives, while the past and present of the Colonel and his absent son are handled well, too. There is a particularly telling scene toward the end of the film between that son and an interrogator, when the son returns to Bolivia after a long absence.

A pregnant woman (Carla Ortiz, above, the film's female star and its producer) figures prominently in the story, too, which pushes open even farther the door to the subject of parenting, parentage and those babies said to have been stolen from their birth mothers and given to "better" families who would raise them "properly."

Olvidados covers a lot of territory in its 112-minute length. You can think of it as a kind of Holocaust movie with Latin American socialists taking the place of Jews (though some victims here are both). Just as it is vital not to forget what happened to the Jews, it is just as important to remember the "disappeared" of South and Central America. Otherwise, those olvidados will indeed be forgotten.

The movie, from the Cinema Libre Studio, opens today, Friday, September 18, in New York City at the Village East Cinema, and on Friday, October 2, in Los Angeles at Laemmle's Royal.  The DVD, Blu-ray and download-to-own option (via Amazon and Vimeo) will become available on December 1, with an iTunes debut scheduled for January 15, 2016. HBO and HBO Latino will join the parade in mid-December.