Baraka Film Review

Overall, watching Baraka was like no other film I have ever experienced. The non-verbal aspect to it definitely threw me off. I was so taken aback that I did not know what to think. I just watched the monkeys chilling in the hot spring. The whole movie conveyed a sense of peacefulness and inner balance that I think many of us lack in our lives. It gave insights into other cultures and different areas many of us will never get to see in real life. It captured the natural beauty of the world. It captured the natural beauty of people. Watching the movie, I experienced a mixture of boredom at some points, amazement at others, serenity, curiosity, perplexity, amusement, and awe. At no point was I left emotionless. At the time, watching the movie, I didn’t know what to think. But in retrospect, the power of this movie truly is obvious and its message of inner peace is clear.

1
This movie is titled Baraka because it evokes the feeling of taking in a deep breath and exhaling it. This has a calming effect and I think it’s analogous to the meaning the film is trying to convey. “Take a breath, breathe, calm down, and find your inner peace.” The shots transport us to areas of the world far removed from our daily lives and show us ways to live that might not be our first choice. The music adds to the feel that this movie does not only consist of an amazing slideshow, but there are certain emotions we need to be feeling associated with some of these images. Also, if you look at it from the “essence” perspective, you can see how the entire world, broken down to its essence, is one being. Different peoples are the same, different cultures are similar in many ways. All our souls are part of the same essence.

2

There are many shots in this film that show wide, aerial shots of our planet. These shots that showcase the beauty of nature lead us to become analytical in a sense of our own culture. When shots are juxtaposed to show contrast between the pristine beauty of the Wetlands of South America with the slums of Brazil, we begin to think rather critically of our own societies. We no longer have a simplistic, doleful view of our societies and to a degree, we become envious of other cultures that get to experience the beauty of nature up close and personal. This also leads to us criticize our societies socially. We often view ourselves as more developed, and thus possessing a higher standard of living. But seeing these indigenous cultures perform their rituals, we get a sense that they are more alive than we are; that they have found happiness in its essence.

3
The main message, or theme, in this movie is that if we do not change our ways, we will end up living in a dystopia much like the garbage dumps in India where the people had to scavenge for food. Although making reference to a crude movie seems tasteless, this scene reminds us of the huge garbage piles from Idiocracy. We let ourselves fall into ruin and destroyed the beauty of nature we had. This is also a critique of our habits concerning the environment. If we do not change, we will lose the environment that harbors all the locations and all the cultures we see in this film.

4
Without a voice or text, we do not attribute a culture to the story. We understand it to be a global voice, the voice of the essence of the world’s people. So the lack of voice or text, and therefore language and bias, achieves the director’s goal of making this a global film.

5

The city usually has clips that are either sped up drastically, or static. Either everything is changing too fast to appreciate the world around us, or nothing is changing, no problems are being fixed, we are sitting in our own rot. It seems that the only escape, the only way to save ourselves would be to escape back to nature, back to the pure essence of the world, become one culture again and let the freedom of the world transport us to true happiness.

6

This monk could be the lone spiritual lighthouse in a sea of busy, materialistic people. He is there to show them that there is no need for our “modern” ways to be happy. Contentment and indeed happiness for some, comes in the form of divine connections. He could also be there questioning the morality of making those workers work in cigarette factories under the conditions they work in. Those who devote themselves to a religion are often symbols for morality and the simple cutting linking the monk to the cigarette factory might question the morality involved in that situation. But the film’s main blow with this juxtaposition is that it advocates religious endeavors, or spirituality. It is argued that only through the peaceful side of religion can we find our own inner peace.

7

With the refuse heap, Baraka criticizes the viewers on our complacency. It questions how we can sit idly by and watch others scavenge for food in dumpsters alongside livestock and wild dogs. How can we continue to throw out food we do not like when others are forced to get whatever they can just to survive? The film does a great job in throwing these questions of morality into our faces, potentially provoking some to action in the process.

8

The music is very diverse, made up of mostly the indigenous music from each area. The one that stands out to me is the one from the Kecak scene. Not only is the entire audio made up of them screaming, but it also has a certain melody to it that is achieved through their “primitive” musical instruments. The auditory beauty of the scene is also accentuated by the way it ends. It ends on one lone drum beat and cuts immediately to shots of a volcano, highlighting the power of the volcano and drawing a comparison to the power of the tribe’s ritual.

9
I think we watched Baraka because we needed to se that we are not the center of the universe. We are not the pristine example that everyone should follow. Sometimes, we need to take the backseat and follow in others’ wakes if we want to achieve the utopia every society strives for. This view could have arisen if we were presented with similar images not in a movie, but not spontaneously. If we are secluded form the world, and do not contribute to its essence the same way other cultures do, then we cannot hope to be able to come to these conclusions on our own. We need the exposure to be let into the light. And with this exposure comes the desire to travel. The movie shows us all this natural beauty and it would be a shame to waste our lives contenting ourselves with slideshows and audio tracks. We need to experience these instances in nature first hand if we want to be able to “breathe.”