Curse of Snakes Valley

Did You Know?

• In 2022, the hip hop duo $uicideboy$ used clips of the film for the lyric video of their song '$uicideboy$ Were Better In 2015'.
• The short story that inspired the screenplay was published in the Polish magazine Przekrój by the end of the 1970s.
• The film's budget is estimated at 100 million PLN.

Plot

In 1954, during the First Indochina War, military pilot Bernard Traven is shot down and lands at the edge of the jungle. He steals a precious casket from a Buddhist temple, and the monk curses him. Thirty years later in Paris, Polish scientist Jan Tarnas, a specialist in old Thai manuscripts, is asked by the military to decipher a manuscript from the found box. When the casket is cut, the laboratory lights go out and snakes appear; police arrive. Tarnas meets journalist Christine Jaubert of France-Soir. Traven and Tarnas examine the manuscript card, noting a warning about 'Khuman' in the Valley of a Thousand Snakes, and decide to travel there together. At an organization's headquarters, Martin Breecher learns that computer analysis shows the casket is made of an yttrium and lutetium alloy obtainable only in space conditions, and he notes the term 'terrible weapon.' The organization forces a photo of Christine's article about snakes in Paris. Traven and Tarnas arrive in Vietnam, receive a guide from the Ministry of Culture and Art, and, because Christine borrowed the only working car, the three set off together. A representative named Noiret learns Christine informed her editors about the expedition to the Lerng Nochta monastery. The expedition encounters Soviet engineer Buturlin, an acquaintance of Tarnas.