The Movie Mystic

What can a man with an IQ of 75 achieve in life? Well, if he is Forrest Gump he can win medals, become a war hero, inspire Elvis Presley’s dance moves, create a famous shrimp fishing fleet, inspire people to jog, start a ping-pong craze, create the smiley, accidentally expose the Watergate Scandal, become a philanthropist and meet the President of the United States several times. This titular character in Robert Zemmeckis’ 1994 film is uplifting to the core. The movie is all about the journey of Forrest Gump from a boy with a curved spine to a man who succeeds in all endeavours that he undertakes in life, all without losing his true self. In the course of this journey, Gump reunites with his childhood girlfriend, his only girlfriend, Jenny. An abused child, Jenny, is the one who asks Forrest to escape from his school bullies by running as fast as he could. And this brings out the sprinter in him. As an enlisted man, Forrest is sent to Vietnam where he befriends Bubba, an Africa...

Set in the backdrop of the Amazon rubber boom of the early 20th century, Colombian director Ciro Guerra’s Embrace of the Serpent is a movie about many things – the timeless wisdom associated with shamanism, the effects of colonialism on native cultures, the dark side of European missionaries, the perils of human greed and above all, the power of dreams.  The story is narrated thirty years apart based on the wanderings of a German and an American in the core of the Colombian Amazon. Having spent quite some time in the jungle, German ethnographer Theo von Martius has developed sickness and is in the quest for the Yakruna, a sacred plant with healing powers. To locate the mystical plant, he, accompanied by a Westernised former native slave named Manduca, seeks the guidance of Karamakate, a shaman, who happens to be the last surviving member of a tribe annihilated by European invaders. Karamakate, Theo and Manduca At the outset, Karamakate is reluctant to help the German for the s...