[A river cruise is like a movie. The boat glides from scene to scene, the travelers get to know each other, and around the final curve awaits resolution, or perhaps revelation.](https://www.npr.org/2016/02/18/467071774/the-strange-and-intoxicating-embrace-of-the-serpent) Or at least that's how the voyage proceeds in Colombian director and co-writer Ciro Guerra's fascinating _The Embrace of the Serpent_. Nominated for the best foreign-language-film Oscar, the Amazon-set drama is a trip in more ways than one. It intertwines two journeys of discovery, inspired by the real-life journals of German ethnologist Theodor Koch-Grunberg and American ethno-botanist Richard Evans Schultes. ---