Baraka and Samsara easily the most visually-stunning in the history of cinema

If there ever was a movie which completely explores the language of cinema then it has to be either Baraka or Samsara. Both these movies use imagery and sound so powerfully that you are left spellbound.  It gives you a kind of spiritual and meditative experience. To call this movie a travelogue would do great injustice to its creator; this movie celebrates our planet and at times hints that something has gone wrong.

Ron Fricke travelled around the globe roughly covering 25 different countries across 6 different continents to capture the great beauty of this planet. He takes us on journey to far of places which we might never visit or which might soon become things of past. He chronicles living conditions, activities, and day-to-day routines of many different people across different countries. This film leaves you in awe of this immensely beautiful planet and also with a sense of loss.

Using time lapsed technique, Ron Fricke captures mundanity of life and makes it look miraculous. He shows how mechanical our lives have become. For me the most unforgettable sequence in this film is not any of the breathtaking scenes capturing natural beauty, but is of chickens in a food-processing plant. These chickens spent their entire lives being fed enclosed in cages too small for them to even turn around. Then they are feed on a slippery stainless steel slope, from where they enter a mechanical process that in a few seconds beheads them, strips them of feathers and skin, and slices them into parts. These chickens never seem alarmed. This entire scene makes you wonder that something has gone wrong, when the life itself has become a manufacturing process.

But not everything is gloomy in this wonderful film. This film also captures people of different faith carrying out there rituals with perfection and a deep sense of contentment and joy that it left a staunch atheist like me in awe of religion. I was left mesmerized with the scene of Kabba Mecca which captured roughly 2 million people in a single shot performing prayer. This is the most number of people I have ever seen in a single frame.

Both these films are easily the most visually-stunning films in the history of cinema. Both these films speak to us in the language of imagery and sound in other words the language of cinema, a universal language.I doubt that any other medium of art would have been able to capture this emotion so beautifully. Baraka and Samsara shows the incredible power this medium of art called cinema possess.

Note :-

Baraka is a Sufi word meaning a blessing, or the breath, or the essence of life.

Samsara means continuous flow of life i.e. the repeating cycle of birth, life, death and rebirth

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To watch Baraka :-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r6tJjZpwUZ8

To watch Samsara :-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=icIv7nJqjuQ