Baraka

To start with, I am sure that one would argue that there are movies as captivating as Baraka. But more than ever, I was left compelled by this non-narrative documentary. It was so spellbinding that I needed almost one week to watch - and re-watched every segment of the movie.

I am in no position to write a review of this movie because I don't think it need one. Furthermore, it seems pompous to describe a movie when the movie itself did not find any need to do that. The absence of narrative comments - usually given to describe pictures - left an even stronger impression. Nothing was given but the idea of how the Earth - and everything in it - operates. Audiences were left to find their own meanings of what they see: the beauty, the ugly, the truth.

In 2011, almost two decades after Baraka was launched, Fricke made a sequel: Samsara. Using the same 70mm camera, a playful time lapse and slow motion, and the absence of narration, Samsara took five years in the making at over 25 countries. Indonesia was in both movie and the Kecak depiction in Baraka was one of the most magical.

The scene of young girls in Calcutta had to spend their days in the city dump searching rocks to sell for a day's meal, a group shot of girls at a massage parlour in Bangkok stood in silence but conveying message through their eyes, and the horrid silence of Auschwitz as well Tuol Seng left me with no words. But even those were depicted in utter beauty; leaving me with no words. Because how would one's mind could ignore the image a beautiful young beggar in Sao Paulo, Brazil frustrated with his invisibility in the society or shun the burning of oil rigs in Kuwait - a long story that I do not even want to start with. I had to stop after every segment for a deep breath - an attempt to absorb the messages my eyes had understood but not yet comprehend.

I wish I could see with Ron Fricke's eyes every single day of my life.