Through the journey of two Western explorers and an Amazonian shaman, Karamakate, the film “Embrace of the Serpent” delves into themes of power, taboo, pollution, and hierarchy. The film examines the clash of ideologies between Euro-American settler-colonial approaches and Indigenous lifeways. With the depiction of Karamkate’s anger, regret, and sorrow looming throughout the entire narrative, the film serves as an inducement for reflection on the destruction of Indigenous cultures by white colonizers. The power within social structure explored in Mary Douglas’s novel Purity and Danger is evident through various contexts. Mary Douglas states in her novel: “Where there is dirt, there is the system. Dirt is the by-product of a systematic ordering and classification of matter, in so far as ordering involves rejecting inappropriate elements." (Douglas, 36). The Western explorers' systematic ordering of the Amazonian world through their dull, scientific pursuits, such as the reliance on the compass for one, represents the colonial mindset of extraction and control, which contrasts deeply with Karamakate's understanding of power that is rooted in the harmonious relationship between men, nature, and the spiritual realm. Whereas “dirt” in Western culture is considered a matter out of place, something that needs to be controlled and eradicated to maintain social order, Karamakate views the Amazon through a lens of interconnectedness and spiritual significance. Theo and Evan embody the Western approach to colonization, as their action shows the mindset that they see the natural world as something to almost be tamed and categorized inside of viewed as a living entity. This clash of worldview and approach is very symbolic of the conflict between colonialism and Indigenous lifeways. A particular scene in the movie shows an interesting dynamic. When Karamate asks Evan how many sides the river has, the white explorer answers that it has two. Although the answer is conventional the one that viewers bear in mind, the answer is scorned by Karamate, as it is clear to him that the empirical and rigid Western ideology does not allow the explorer to comprehend the mysticism and beauty of the native cultures. The obsession with material objects by the explorers also hinders the mission both spiritually and physically, as shown evidence when the package was shown to be weighing down the boat. Themes of disorder explored in Douglas’s novel are also evidenced when Karamakate carelessly laughs at Theo’s extremely out-of-sync and disordered attempt while paddling the canoe inside to connect and understand the natural motion of the river.

Mary Douglas’s exploration of taboo and pollution can also be seen relevant to the film’s depiction of cultural encounters between the Indigenous and the Western.  According to Douglas, "A polluting person is always in the wrong. He has developed some wrong condition or simply crossed some line which should not have been crossed and this displacement unleashes danger for someone." This notion of pollution can be seen through the interactions between the Western explorers and the Indigenous communities. At the beginning of the film, Karamakate can be seen to be very war of all whites due to the plagues they always seem to bring such as genocide, deforestation, or Christianity upon his people. The intrusion of Westerners into sacred and forbidden spaces is seen as a form of pollution, violating the taboos that govern Indigenous life. The part where Theo’s compass is stolen due to its resemblance to a cultural object demonstrates how cultural purity can introduce ignorance. While the depiction of the Catholic mission Karamakate, Theo, and Manduca stumble upon highlights how cultural adoption/evasion only instills violenc