It almost feels like a religious experience, watching a movie that’s as beautifully alien and removed from convention as Embrace of the Serpent. Colombian filmmaker Ciro Guerra‘s Amazon-set drama is an indignant lament on the devastating, festering effects of colonialism, but it’s more experiential and less studious than that sounds. The black-and-white river imagery is supple, hypnotic and frightening, in that startling way that most unfamiliar things are, at first, frightening. The scariest thing, though, is how vividly Guerra shows us—via two white men’s parallel river quests, separated by 40 years—the extent of the destruction pale-skinned conquerors wreaked on the indigenous cultures of the region. Even scarier: the realization that the eradication of our indigenous people, in our America, makes Guerra’s dark fable hit uncomfortably close to home.

Like the narrative (which is based on a pair of white explorer’s real-life journals), the production’s heroes are dual, with cinematographer David Gallego having as much influence on the film’s success as Guerra. With locations as lush as the ones we glide and trudge through on the winding South American riverways, it seems best, for a story this restrained and contemplative, for us to simply, respectfully bear witness to the indescribably beautiful surroundings. There’s no need to breathe life into what’s already teeming with overly stylized presentation, and thankfully, Gallego’s got taste. The choice to go monochrome supports the thrust of the story; what would have been about color and vibrancy is now all about light, darkness and shadow.

At the center of the first story is Theodor Koch-Grunberg (Jan Bijvoet), a German explorer in search of a rare, sacred flower called the “yakuna.” Theo’s fallen ill on his expedition, tended to by his local guide, Manduca (Miguel Dionisio Ramos). As they land their boat onto the riverbank, they’re met by Karamakate (Nilbio Torres), a shaman who doesn’t take kindly to white men, whose violent conquest has rendered him a companionless river dweller, the last of his tribe. Locals like Manduca, who cooperate with the whites and have adopted many of their Western customs are, to him, just as disgusting. Reluctantly, Karamakate agrees to be their guide (only he knows how to reach the yakuna), enticed by Theo’s promise to help him find the last remaining survivors of his tribe, who the German claims he’s seen with his own eyes.

On their journey, the cultural divide is slowly bridged: Karamakate keeps Theo’s illness at bay with herbal medicine; Theo shares some of the worldly belongings he’s hauling around in his clunky luggage box. (Meanwhile, Manduca straddles the cultural line.) Their bond is shaken to the core when they come across a grove of drained rubber trees and indigenous workers mutilated and enslaved by the invaders. Tensions are heightened again when they happen upon a Catholic mission where a mad Spanish priest rules over orphaned indigenous children, forcing them to abandon their old customs as he abuses them on a whim in a multitude of sickening ways. This portion of the film is almost unbearably awful to watch. It speaks to Guerra’s integrity, though, that he shows no measure of restraint in depicting something so horrible as cultural extermination. Again, the true horror is how easily linked the priest’s child abuse is to issues of our time (Spotlight comes to mind).

Theo has a mental breakdown when his compass is stolen by one of the locals, fearing the technological trinket will sully the purity of the tribes traditions. Karamakate takes the fit as a sign of ignorant condescension, and they’re back to square one. Our link to the second story, set in the 1940s, is Karamakate, the older version of whom is played by Antonio Bolivar. We flash over to this second journey intermittently, which sees the shaman in a sorry state of soullessness, numbed to nothing by the continuing white-man takeover. He meets a new, American explorer, Evans (Brionne Davis), who, like Theo, is trekking towards the yakuna wonder-plant. The tone’s much more pensive and dirge-like in this less-eventful second story, which is mostly about the sorrow that’s built up in Karamakate following decades of watching his home ravaged by Western “progress.”

As grim and yucky as this all sounds, the movie isn’t without a few moments of mirth. Evans blowing Karamakate’s goddamn mind with a phonograph under a starry night sky is heart-meltingly cute, and when young Karamakate and Theo exchange the occasional glance of recognition and acceptance at each other, it gives the story just the right amount of hopefulness it needs to avoid being completely depressing. What’ll be most challenging about the film for many is its pace, which is relatively lax and often stretches moments and shots longer than normal. Some would call this meandering; I’d call it glamorously introspective (I have no qualms about staring at Gallego’s images for an extra beat or two—or three). Guerra’s made a magical film in that it feels strangely organic and of the earth. The mechanisms we’re used to recognizing and latching on to—performances, camera moves, editing, sound design—flow together so naturally in Guerra and his team’s hands that Embrace of the Serpent feels of the earth, not of 35mm celluloid.

Since its premiere at Cannes in May 2015, Ciro Guerra’s Embrace of the Serpent has been stunning audiences all over the world with its tale of Karamakate, an Amazonian shaman who helps two different explorers over two periods of time as they hunt down a rare psychedelic plant. In order to provide an accurate portrait of the Amazon location and the early 20th century time period, Guerra and his crew ventured into the Colombian Amazon to work with the native tribes and bring their vision to life. And while the film has its fair share of stunning imagery—it was shot in black and white on 35mm film—Guerra doesn’t avoid confronting the horrors of colonization going on at the time, using his narrative to explore the devastating short-term and long-term effects of the West’s destruction of Amazonian cultures.

I talked with Ciro Guerra about Embrace of the Serpent last year at the Toronto International Film Festival, and since then the film has gone on to earn an Oscar nomination for Best Foreign Language Film. Read on for the full interview below, where Guerra talks about his intensive research process and what filmmaking means to him.

Embrace of the Serpent opens in New York City on February 17th before expanding to Los Angeles, Toronto and more cities on February 19th.

Tell me about your research process for this film.

It was about 3 and a half years of research during which the script was developed. The starting point was the journals of the explorers. I found them fascinating when I read them. I thought it was a great story that had not been told. I was fascinated by these men who left everything behind, who left their families and their lives to go three, four, even 17 years in the case of Schultes, to an unknown place and just tell the world about it. I first traveled to the Amazon region after reading them, and what I found was completely different. The region is completely transformed. So [the film] is part of a desire to bring back this Amazon to the way it used to be, and it was a big effort. People don’t dress like that anymore, and most of the traditions and languages are lost or in the process of disappearing.

We contacted the communities and we asked them if they want to be a part of the film. They said, “Our condition is that, in order to give you permission to shoot here, we are part of the film.” That made us very happy because we were able to collaborate. And for them, it was like bringing back the stories of their grandfathers or their ancestors they have heard from before. We wanted to bring an image of that to life because history has no image of that moment.

Were you initially nervous about approaching the communities in the Amazon?

I think the people of the Amazon are really open and friendly and enthusiastic. They are very joyous people. They can see through you, so if you’re transparent and you’re not carrying any second intentions they can see that immediately. But they ask you the really important questions, which are “What’s the real reason you want to make this film? What’s the true reason?” And for me, it meant going back and looking in the mirror and asking myself, “What is the reason I want to make this film?” When I understood that I wanted to learn and share the knowledge, I felt comfortable saying this is the reason. If the reason had been that I want to work, I want to go to a festival, win awards or make money, I should have quit at that moment.

How did you initially come upon the two journals that you based the film on?

I had a lifelong dream of making a film in the Amazon. I had come from making my first two films, which were personal and about my life, my memories, my childhood, and my culture. For this film I wanted to go the opposite way, to take a journey into the unknown. The Amazon is half of Colombia and it’s completely unknown to Colombians. It’s a place that we have very little knowledge of. I have a friend who’s an anthropologist, who was an actor in my previous film, who said if I want to go into the Amazon I should start with the journals of the explorers. I related heavily to [the journals] because, to me, making a film is like that. It’s a journey into something where you never know what’s going to happen. It’s uncharted territory every time you make a film. I related strongly to that quest and hunger for knowledge.

Your previous film Wind Journeys was shot in 80 locations, and with Embrace of the Serpent, you’re going to the Amazon to make it. You’re doing much more than other people might normally do when making a movie. Is this something you feel like you need to do in order to make a film?

I think films should be an experience, both making them and watching them. When you sit in the theatre in the dark you want to be taken somewhere. You want to be changed, you want to live an experience. For me, with the process of making a film, I like to tackle it that way. I want a film to take me somewhere, to change my point of view, to confront my ideas in life and the world. Filmmaking is a really intense experience, and I think it should be. It shouldn’t be an office job. It shouldn’t be predictable or safe. It should be risky. When there’s that excitement on your part, from the people making the film, the audience feels that.

What made you decide to shoot on 35mm?

The look of the film was inspired by the photographs that the explorers took. [They’re] almost daguerreotype kind of pictures, but they have an organic quality, and in order to have this organic quality there’s no match for film. I have no problem with high definition video. I think it’s right for urban stories, modern stories, and artificial light, but when you want to get the real texture of nature, film is the way to go. It’s not possible to think of something else. But it also gives you some limitations.

There are strengths with film. The cameras are more [like] battle cameras. Some of them were made to shoot wars, so they are good for shooting in rough terrain. They do better with humidity and external conditions while video cameras are not so tough with these environments. But there was also something else. Since we had to shoot on film, we had limited stock, so we only had two takes for each shot. With video, you can do 17 takes for one shot, but here it’s two takes, and that makes every take precious. It focuses the actors, the crew, everyone. When we used to take photographs on film, every photograph was valuable. We had to choose and take care of it. Today with the digital age, you take thousands of photographs but they have no value. You never look at them again. You don’t frame them. In film you’re making a leap of faith, and that’s fascinating.

Was it a very stressful shoot then?

I thought it was going to be. We were prepared for the worst, and it was a very demanding and tough shoot, but it wasn’t stressful. The choice that we made to be very respectful to the environment, to the communities, to make as little impact as possible, meant that we felt that the jungle was playing to our side. We felt a connection with each other and the place that we were in, so it became a very profound and spiritual experience for all of us. I feel that, when you try to bring a foreign shoot into a place like this and try to obey all the rules of the place, you can turn the place against you. But, in this case, I felt that we had the protection of the place and the spiritual support of the community, so it turned into a very happy experience for all of us.

Tell me about the way you developed Karamakate.

The interesting thing to me was not to make [something] usually seen in this kind of movie, where you have the main point of view from the explorer. It was very clear to me that to make this story unique I had to switch the point of view. There was a character in the journals who had a very small appearance and I found him fascinating, so I started developing on him. But I had to switch something in my mind in order to write him and create him. That took about 2 years of writing and researching to really understand how this character sees the world. Not only that, I also had to make it understandable for an audience. It’s a role that’s so foreign that it’s easy to get lost, and I was really lost for a while.

But then we found the actors. They were really a part of developing the character. They brought their own experience and their own views, and they enrichen the characters through dialogue and action. But I think we were safe because it was a fiction, so we had some liberties.

Do you feel that what these explorers were doing was vital, or did it just contribute further to the colonization going on at the time?

I feel that what they did was vital because, if those encounters didn’t take place, these cultures would have been erased by capitalism and we would have never noticed them. These encounters in the jungle had a really big impact because this knowledge that was liberated for the first time really changed the world during the middle of the 20th century. All of the first ecological movements were influenced by these journals. The writers of the Beat Generation were influenced. For example, Burroughs went to Colombia to see if this was all true. It had a big influence on what became psychedelia and the hippie movement, and also the change of consciousness that brings us today to a world where environmental issues are a thing. A hundred years ago it would be impossible to discuss these matters of preserving other cultures and other languages, or being respectful to these people who, at that time, were seen as primitive, subhuman and souls that needed to be rescued. I think that the journals of the explorers really helped change that.

What made you bring in the concept of the Chullachaqui myth?

During the [research] process, I came upon the Machiguenga myth of the Peruvian amazon. It struck me because I was exploring the German culture at the time, and there was a direct resonance with the myth of the doppelganger. But then it struck even harder because it’s an ancient myth that speaks to contemporary men. We’re living in an age where people are communicating through virtual avatars. It was something timeless that was contemporary as well. It also gave me an idea of how I could find a way to express the feelings of a character who feels that their culture is disappearing and about to be lost. I decided that it was going to be the driving myth behind the film’s structure.

When did you come up with the idea to link these journals together and use Karamakate as the connective tissue?

I was looking at a way we could bring the viewer into a different world or view. In the journals of Theodor Koch-Grunberg, the German explorer that I was inspired by, he came following the footsteps of another German explorer named Schomburgk, who had been there 40 years before. Koch-Grunberg reached a community on the border of Colombia and Venezuela. They welcomed him and, for that generation, he was the first white man they had ever seen. He spent two months there, and all the time they talked about the myth of Surumbukú. After a while, he realized that Surumbukú was Schomburgk. The other explorer became an Amazonian myth, and now he was also Surumbukú. He was the same. So he understood that, for them, there was only one man going back in time every time. He was one soul traveling through different men who are coming in search of knowledge. I thought that was brilliant, and I was excited by that. This was a really great way of telling a story in which time is not a linear thing, but a multiplicity of things, which is the way they see time.

The Best Foreign Language Film category, whether it’s at the Oscars or any other awards show, always poses a strange question: how can you whittle the entire non-English speaking world down to five titles? When you compare this to the eight English-language nominees for Best Picture, it seems like an unfair balance. Now, granted, the Best Picture category isn’t limited to just English-language productions, but you’d be crazy to suggest that foreign productions have the same shot at getting a Best Picture nod as something like The Revenant or Brooklyn (past foreign language nominees like Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon and Amour are exceptions to the norm).

Even stranger is the method of selecting the nominees, which requires countries to submit only one film for consideration in the category. That means France, a country that consistently puts out some of the best cinema in the world every year, can only pick one film to represent their country in the category. But even then, the selected film needs to have a theatrical release within a specific time frame in their home country in order to truly qualify for the category. Those rules can get frustrating for some foreign language films, and the idea of contorting a release in one’s own home country just for the possibility of one award nomination thousands of miles away isn’t exactly an appealing one: in 2013, the French distributor of Blue is the Warmest Colour refused to change their release strategy, meaning one of the most buzzed about films of that year didn’t even qualify for the only category it had a shot of getting nominated in.

The point of all of this is that, like everything else at the Oscars, politics abound, and these nominees need to be taken with a big grain of salt. These five films are hardly representative of the best world cinema has to offer, but they’re far from being the worst either. This year, the Foreign Language category provided one big, welcome surprise: the nomination of Theeb, director Naji Abu Nowar’s film about a young member of a Bedouin tribe who gets caught up in the war taking place far from his community. I saw Theeb back at its New Directors/New Films screening and came away pleasantly surprised at its assuredness, especially coming from a first-time director. The fact that Theeb got a theatrical release in the US was great news on its own; its Oscar nomination should hopefully turn more people on to a great film that deserves to be seen (Theeb is currently out in limited theatrical release from Film Movement).

From the surprising to the not-so-surprising, it shouldn’t come as a shock that Hungary’s Son of Saul received a nomination in this category. It premiered at Cannes in 2015, where it scored the Grand Prix along with a nice distribution deal from Sony Pictures Classics. That, combined with the fact that it’s a Holocaust film, solidified Son of Saul’s appearance here, since at least one foreign language nominee must deal with the Holocaust in some way, shape or form. Critics and audiences have been over the moon for Son of Saul since its Cannes debut, but I came away disappointed after seeing it. Director Laszlo Nemes and cinematographer Matyas Erdely show off their formal skills with the film’s precise construction, using shallow focus and long takes to “immerse” viewers into the horrors of surviving Auschwitz, but it only calls attention to the film’s own technical achievements. And combining a form that’s all about showing itself off with one of mankind’s greatest tragedies makes for a pairing that’s ugly for all the wrong reasons. It’s disappointing to see that, in a year with so many strong films both nominated and eligible for the category, the award will wind up going to Son of Saul, whose bland, digestible form of “difficult” cinema makes its win more about people congratulating their own broadened cinematic horizons than celebrating the best nominee (Son of Saul is currently out in limited theatrical release from Sony Pictures Classics).

That brings me to Mustang, Deniz Gamze Erguven’s film which France submitted this year over Jacques Audiard’s Dheepan, a film most assumed would have been selected given its Palme d’Or win last year. It’s a choice only people who haven’t seen Mustang might find surprising, since those who have seen Mustang know it’s a legitimately great film through and through. Following five orphaned sisters living in a tiny Turkish village, the film portrays the girls’ struggles to fight back against old cultural, religious and patriarchal standards as they’re married off one-by-one in arranged ceremonies. The film may get a little too contrived as it goes along, but it’s impossible to deny that Erguven has crafted one powerful story of a fight for independence and freedom from the old, archaic ways of the past. Mustang has a small but fervent following since its US release in late 2015, and because of that, it might be the only film with a shot at taking the trophy away from Son of Saul (Mustang is currently out in limited theatrical release from Cohen Media Group).

For a nominee like Ciro Guerra’s Embrace of the Serpent, it should just be happy that it got nominated in the first place, as it’s probably too “out there” for people to consider choosing as the winner. Taking place between two periods of time, Guerra shows a shaman living deep in the Amazon as he helps two different scientists try to find a rare plant within the jungle. Embrace has its fair share of gorgeous cinematography, but like last year’s winner Ida it’s hard to find much to enjoy beyond its aesthetics. Unlike Son of Saul, Guerra’s form feels sincere in its attempts to pay respect to the location and cultures he profiles, but other than its pointed look at the devastating effects of colonialism the film comes across as Herzog-lite (Embrace of the Serpent will come out in limited theatrical release on Friday, February 17^th from Oscilloscope Pictures).

Finally, Tobias Lindholm’s A War is a fine follow-up to A Hijacking, which suffered an unfortunate case of timing when it came out around the same time as Paul Greengrass’ Captain Phillips. Taking place in Afghanistan, Lindholm focuses on a Danish army commander who winds up getting accused of a war crime after making a rash decision during a firefight. Denmark is no stranger to impressive yet overly manipulated drama—see previous Oscar nominee The Hunt, which Lindholm co-wrote—and A War is more of the same, showcasing a complex and nuanced situation with the efficiency of a procedural. Fans of this form of storytelling will find plenty to like here, while those who bristle at the staidness should stay far away. Lindholm continues to show he’s an excellent dramatist, and no matter what A War’s chances of winning might be, it’s difficult to argue against its presence in this category.

The 38th annual Mill Valley Film Festival was a memorable 10-day celebration indeed. A few excellent films emerged as sure-fire Oscar contenders, like Tom McCarthy’s newsroom slow-burner Spotlight, Cary Joji Fukunaga‘s Netflix powerhouse Beasts of No Nation, László Nemes’ heartstopping Son of Saul, and Kent Jones’ incisive documentary Hitchcock/Truffaut.

Actors further cemented their cases for awards consideration as well: Michael Keaton again went toe-to-toe with last year’s Best Actor Oscar-winner, Eddie Redmayne, as their two films, Spotlight and The Danish Girl, took center stage on opening night; Brie Larson gives the best performance of her career in Lenny Abrahamson’s Room; and Sir Ian McKellen charmed festival-goers for two days, reminding us of his heartfelt, unforgettable turn as the aging Mr. Holmes.

Some under-the-radar films made lasting impressions as well, like Mitchell Lichtenstein’s gothic ghost story Angelica and Gunnar Vikene’s Nordic dark comedy Here Is Harold (my personal favorite of the festival).

My MVFF experience ended off as strong as it started, with two very different but equally spellbinding foreign features and yet another film that may be picking up a few golden statues come February.

Fight (And Burn Stuff) For the Right

With feminism becoming less and less of a dirty word as women and feminist allies become more and more galvanized around the fight for gender equality, Sarah Gavron‘s Suffragette looks back to the early feminists who sacrificed home and health to demand their right to vote in early 20th-century England. Carey Mulligan stars as Maud, a working-class wife and mother who gets swept up by the British suffragette movement, participating in explosive acts of protest alongside her fellow footsoldiers (played by the likes of Helena Bonham Carter, Anne-Marie Duff, and Meryl Streep). The cost of Maud’s actions are steep, however; her husband (Ben Wishaw) refuses to abide her newfound passion for activism, kicking Maud out of their home, away from their son. Screenwriter Abi Morgan’s story is as rousing as you’d expect for such inherently inspirational subject matter, but the film’s real strength is in its humility and dignity; it’s a period piece brimming with stunning locations (it was the first production allowed to be shot in the British Houses of Parliament since the ’50s) and elaborate costumes, but never lets the production design take precedence over the characters’ plight unlike other, showier period pieces. Mulligan is typically wonderful though she doesn’t reach the emotional depth of some of her greater performances. Still, it’s a fine film all involved are surely proud to have been a part of.

Amazon Enlightenment

The most sublime, heart-achingly beautiful thing I saw at MVFF was an Amazonian upriver tale called Embrace of the Serpent, by Colombian director Ciro Guerra. It’s a magical, almost religious experience when a film breaks free completely from modern cinema norms and puts you in a state of mind you’ve never known, and that’s what Guerra does here. Shot on Super 35 black and white, the film follows two white scientists (Jan Bijvoet and Brionne Davis) as they scour the Amazon for a rare healing plant, their journeys separated by decades (one’s set in the early 1900s, the other 40 years later). The foreigners share a common guide, Amazonian shaman Karamakate (Nilbio Torres and Antonio Bolivar). The story is a dirge-like lament on the soul-sucking effect colonization has had on the once pure Amazonian culture. Otherworldly and yet bound to the earth and all her natural glory, Embrace of the Serpent is as can’t-miss as they come.

Sin and Splendor

Inside a cozy little house lives a family fractured by sexual awakening, paranoia, and depravity in Tali Shalom-Ezer‘s bone-chilling Princess. A most unsettling topic—child molestation—is explored delicately and artfully by the Israeli writer-director, whose story gently unfolds in a series of quietly intoxicating, increasingly unsettling glimpses of domestic implosion. The protagonist is Adar (Shira Haas), a bright 12-year-old who lives with her mom, Alma (Keren Mor), and her mom’s boyfriend, Michael (Ori Pfeffer). Adar and Michael have fun horsing around at home while mom goes off to work, but Michael’s playing grows inappropriate before long (he starts calling her “little prince”). Adar’s new friend, a boy named Alan (Adar Zohar-Hanetz), bears a staggering resemblance to her, and when he’s invited to stay with the family for a while, he becomes the new object of Michael’s affections. Sumptuously-lit and fluidly edited, the film’s presentation is lovely, which is a nice counter-balance to the difficult subject matter. Like Ingmar Bergman’s Persona, Princess creates a beautiful sense of dreamlike disorientation and mirror-image poetry that arthouse lovers will treasure.