Glucedee It's hard to see any effort in the film. There's no comedy to speak of, no real drama and, worst of all.

Ava-Grace Willis Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

Ezmae Chang This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

Geraldine The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

sol- Asked by a European scientist to track down a plant with reputed curative powers, an elderly native Amazonian recalls how he helped another Caucasian man on a similar quest four decades earlier in this Oscar nominated drama from Colombia. The film is lusciously shot in black and white with excellent attention to on-location sound and the performances of the four main players are very strong as the film flips between the present-day and past adventures as recalled by the Amazonian. Several interesting ideas surface in the first half of the film as the past scientist expresses reluctance to leave his compass behind with an indigenous tribe, lest it change their culture and understanding of the world, while at the same time oblivious to the fact that his own very presence is enough to provide a rift in their world. Is not, however, until over an hour in that the film truly takes off as the present-day scientist visits a tribe where the missionaries have been ironically crucified and a fake messiah (dressed to look like traditional images of Jesus no less) is worshipped. While this religious fanaticism angle sadly only lasts for around half an hour, it remains the high point of the movie, highlighting just how detrimental European presence has the potential to be in the untouched wild with the "worst of both worlds" come together. This might not be the easiest film to endure with deliberate pacing and many periods of sparse dialogue, but the impression it leaves is hard to shake.

fyrwerx The world is sick. Everyone knows it. As we have become more separated from and disrespectful to Nature, it has responded in ways that we are just beginning to feel. The perfect storm of organized religion aiding capitalistic industries to feed Western- style urbanization was all initially conceived and supervised by my ancestors, exploiting the labor of indigenous peoples who had lived in harmony with nature for thousands of years. I am a white American of Christian-European ancestry. The core of our white insanity was our total belief in a "God-granted" right to subdue the natural world for our own misguided purposes. Now, almost all peoples of the world have taken on this same insanity and the exploitation of natural resources has intensified exponentially. It's all wrong. It's all bad. It's all going to end horribly. Our only hope is for all of us -- or at least, most of us -- to turn away from mindless consumerism and return to simpler lifestyles where less is more and a healthy planet is seen as our only real asset. This extraordinary movie is a masterpiece that makes all of these points. In the future, if humans have to leave a decimated Earth for some gamble on interstellar colonization, I hope they get to watch this movie before they begin again.

DirtbagDionysus This film, is not only great but a master piece. In a film industry so saturated by sequels, franchises and other such blockbusters that follow the Hollywood formula into an eternal cycle. Here, that is most interesting that it is in South America where he find its remedy. Never before have I seen a film so beautiful, so engulfing that I truly feel honoured to witness it. Portraying a naked view of humanity, and our weaknesses in the west. This film will not 'tell you' what to think, but provides a side that is rarely seen. A lost culture and so much lost knowledge. This movie is a tale in symbolism, in fantasy. A film which has an 'Apocalypse Now' feel to it. It is not afraid to expose harsh truths, nor is it one to mask naivety and ignorance of the indigenous populations. With the beautiful cinematography, incredible acting, and the note perfect music. This film is more than a work of art. It is a far cry from the golden age of film. And yet too, teaches us golden lessons in the purity, the simplicity of both nature and humanity.

KissEnglishPasto ......................................................from Pasto,Colombia...Via: L.A. CA., CALI, COLOMBIA and ORLANDO, FL It isn't much of a leap to venture that the vast majority of IMDb Users have never seen a Colombian Film. If there is a single word in the above Title that grabs you, rest assured, you must "EMBRACE" this Oscar-nominated gem by placing it at the top of your "Must See" List! Colombian Director Ciro Guerra (Los Viajes del Viento/read my Review) has taken an Amazonian Shaman's reality-based Dream and crafted it into a visionary cinematic hallucination for the ages! The operative term here is "Culture-Clash". Two delicately intertwined story lines, both inspired by travel journals authored three decades apart by two Amazonian explorers; German scientist Theodor Koch-Grunberg (Jan Bijvoet, "Borgman"), in 1909, and by American amateur botanist Richard Evans Schultes (Brionne Davis, "Avenged"), thirty years later. EMBRACE opens a gritty and convincingly realistic window into the Colombian Amazon Region of the early 20th Century. Guerra gets up close and personal with some of the persistent cultural atrocities perpetrated on indigenous peoples in the Amazon region of Colombia, without dwelling inordinately on them. As if the three plus centuries of Spanish Colonial Rule had not provided enough genocide and torture!For those of you addicted to "Fast and Furious" pacing in movies, undoubtedly, will find EMBRACE a bit "Tedious and Slow", but I would say, "Deliberate and True to Life". One can, at best, barely imagine the laid- back life rhythms in remote regions of the Amazon a century ago! The intentional ever-so-slightly grainy Black & White cinematography imbues EMBRACE with an authentic 1930's look and feel. Of course, there have been numerous critiques of thusly having deprived us of the myriad of Amazon shades of green…But EMBRACE is not a Travel Promo and I applaud Ciro Guerra's Black & White decision! Here is a comment/comparison you probably might not see anywhere else: Although Director Ciro Guerra was born in 1981, I can't help but think that, as a kid, he saw and was influenced by Stanley Kubrick's 1968, "2001" (My Favorite Movie)! There were, in my opinion, a number of interesting parallels, confirmation of which I will leave up to you! Shaman Karamakate, the last survivor of his tribe (Nibio Torres-young/Antonio Bolivar-old) who has been chewed up and spit out as a lifelong victim of culture clash, and, as a result, defines himself as "chullachaqui", a walking empty shell zombie of a man.EMBRACE is light years from being a feel-good movie, yet, there is a "spirituality and focus which can help you transcend even a worst- case scenario of mistreatment and misfortune in life", that is transformational and which provides ground swelling inspiration! This unique film would probably appeal to those who crave unusual true stories, those of you who enjoy Drama focused on a Clash of Cultures, and movies set in exotic locations! 10*.....ENJOY/DISFRUTELA!