Baraka
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Movie Reviews of Baraka
Movie Review: One of the great films of the 20th century
Summary: 5 Stars
Ron Fricke, director and photographer of this film, was also the director of photography for the more well-known classic Koyaanisqatsi. For the many people who fell in love with Koyaanisqatsi and its sequel Powaqqatsi but were disappointed with the third film of that trilogy (Naqoyquatsi), you may find as I did that Baraka is the film you were wishing for and didn't get.
Like Koyaanisqasi and Powaqqatsi, Baraka is a visual and audiory feast for the senses and soul. A journey into the sacred and the deepest truths of humanity's connection (and disconnection) with the divine and with nature. You will be immersed in the culture-defining rituals of both ancient and modern traditions, and take and extraordinary cinematic journey through 24 countries on six continents. This is the kind of film that can, in 104 minutes, permanently and deeply change your perspective on what it means to be alive on this planet today. And then change it again on the second and third viewings.
Disclaimer: Many people find films in this genre (all visual and musical, with no dialogue or "story" in the conventional Hollywood sense of the term) completely unwatchable and "boring." You certainly will be disappointed (or at least disoriented) if you are expecting a film with actors playing out a "plot." However, if you can open yourself up and give yourself over to an entirely different conception of what film as an artform can be, you may agree that Baraka, like Koyanisqatsi and Powaqqatsi, is one of the most outstanding and moving films of the 20th century--perhaps even of all time.
Movie Review: The best movie I've ever bought
Summary: 5 Stars
This is an incredible, serious, and beautiful film. The imagery is astounding and often thought-provoking. The music is also great and matches the film very well -- if you like Peter Gabriel's "Passion" (the instrumental soundtrack to The Last Temptation of Christ), you will like the score for Baraka.I disagree with the reviewer who said that Baraka is just an imitation of Koyaanisqatsi. If you'd bother to read the credits, Ron Fricke (the creator of Baraka) was also responsible for ALL of the filming for the -qatsi trilogy (which includes Koyaanisqatsi). Baraka is a different kind of movie, with a different, more subtly communicated message.
Baraka was shot in the (very expensive) 70mm format, which yields a very high quality picture, especially when transferred to DVD. Ron Fricke is a master of the 70mm format, and he actually designed many of the camera rigs used in Baraka (including the very high quality time lapse footage). Give Fricke some credit for having learned something in the almost 10 years since Koyaanisqatsi was filmed.
If you are expecting vapid, New Age eye candy, this is not the movie for you. If you want a beautiful film that will change you, a film that you can watch again every 6 months without getting tired of it, then buy this DVD. I have the original DVD (very hapy with it), so I can't say whether the film transfer quality in the Collector's Edition is on par. Maybe one of these days I'll buy the Collector's Edition and see which one I like best.
Movie Review: Five stars for the film, not the DVD...
Summary: 5 Stars
I saw this film in its original 70mm glory before I had any idea what it was. Not knowing anything about made it all the more spectacular. All I was told is 'you gotta see it'.It is a symbiosis of sound and sight in a truly unique synthesis. One without the other leaves one with a sense of absence. Yet the two together are perfect. Michael Stearns provides a soundscape that buoys music from around the world. Add to this stunning scenery and fascinating people both at play and at work from around the world and you've got a delight for the senses. You really do just have to see it.
Personally I have to watch it when I'm alone as most people I know simply think the movie to be a bit odd as it is not your traditional 'movie'. Yet it is so much more than a documentary or some kind of advertisement for the Sierra Club or something. It is truly something to be experienced.
Now for the bad news. The picture quality on the DVD is spectacular, so too the songs. However, there are some moments of rather loud static in between the songs. It sounded to me at first like the wind or part of the film but then I realized it's not. It sounds like tape hiss (and I know for certain that it isn't my sound system). Perhaps bad transfer or a bad original, I don't know, but it is almost, though not quite, distracting enough to put a damper on it.
So five stars for the film and the music, four (even three) on the DVD.
Movie Review: Simply amazing
Summary: 5 Stars
Everything from Whirling dervishes to Snow Monkeys to chick Factories etc. There are three segments that are sinply amazing. The first where it shows people practicing the ancient religions, like the Wailing Wall, Islam, christianity etc. Then the another segment where it introduces Aborigines, Masai, and an Amazonian tribe and then cuts to the rituals or dance and song of all three. The third is of human suffering and claustophobia, where the suffocating urbanity of cities are shown along with the cruelty of chick factories, making comparisons, then a Japanese butoh preformer is shown in a silent scream of agony used in this film as a reaction o the bustling pointless and suffocation. It then cuts to the dumps in India where people scuttle around picking through garbage, it then goes to poverty and the homeless and lingers on the cold and dispassionate stares of Bangkok prostitutes, it then cuts to three Japanese Butoh Preformers who preform a slow and lingering and wavering dance of pain and anguish so beautifully done, with their chalky faces and clothes they look like they are in a trance, it then ends all the while using a beautiful and haunting score it then goes over endless planes and the burning fields of Kuwait, Nazi Death camp Auchwitz and the Cmbodian killing fields. This movie is amazing, it displays unity adn diversity. GEt it or see it in your theater, whatever just watch it man.Movie Review: Rented it twice and would like to own it...
Summary: 5 Stars
What can I say that hasn't already been said in the hundreds of positive reviews of this art-movie-music-dvd?
It is amazing. The footage of the Balinese Monkey chant alone makes the film worth seeing. And then there are so many other interesting things, people, and cultural snapshots... it is a smorgasbord of interesting and amazing people and places and rituals and life on planet Earth.
My only complaint is that part of the 2nd half of the film, where modern day "civilized" humans enter the picture, is too long, ugly and boring... I realize the idea was to contrast and compare the cultures of more primitive people and the cultures of modern peoples, but I found the modern people boring and unpleasant, and that part of the film goes on a bit too long.
The film does make you think about who we human beings are and how we are all connected, and yet also different; how modern people seem to have lost their connection their own humanity, and to nature; and how we are desroying the life-support system we depend on... This could also have been called "Koyannisquatsi" (life out of balance), but I guess that title was already taken. (-;
The soundtrack is superb, and the images are beautiful. I can't imagine any dialogue that would have made the movie better.
I think everyone should see this movie. Then you'll probably want to buy it.