Review of Baraka (1992) by Joel F — 13 Apr 2009

It's very difficult to describe the experience of watching Baraka without sounding ridiculous. Certainly, it's hard to talk about the movie to people who haven't seen it without making it sound like the most boring flick ever made. One has to describe it like this - a 90 minute long documentary with no words or talking, mostly focused on nature, life, death, human suffering and the world's beauty. It doesn't sound thrilling - that's probably why I avoided watching it for so long. But let me assure you that words about the film are just as useless as words in the film. It's one of the most breathtaking, beautiful, eye-popping, stunning movie-going experiences you'll ever have. I thought my top 20 movies of all time was completely untouchable - I haven't added a new movie there in years. As soon as Baraka was finished, it made it on there. That's really saying something; hell, Dark Knight didn't even bust my top 20.

So yes, Baraka is a documentary. Yes, it has no dialogue. No, it is not silent, and no, it is not ever remotely boring. There isn't a minute of this movie that goes by where I'm not endlessly fascinated, stunned, overwhelmed, overpowered. Even when the film becomes, momentarily, creepy and disturbing and endlessly sad, it's still impossible to look away, to break your eyes from the beauty on screen. Cause yes, as lame as it sounds, this is truly a beautiful movie, maybe the most beautiful I've ever seen. The first half hour alone is enough to make you not only feel spiritually uplifted, but to actually think this crazy-ass world of ours is not so bad afterall.

Of course, after that first half hour, the movie turns away from showcasing beautiful landscapes, gorgeous nature scenery/footage, and bizarre yet incredible tribal chants, dances, and ceremonies. The middle section of the film focuses on humans, and mostly not the good stuff either. There's a ten minute sequence that is almost completely time-lapse photography of a large Asian city, and it's impossible to watch it without your jaw hitting the floor (I'm not so jaded as to not mention I've now seen this film twice stoned, and this part never fails to make me gasp :P). How they managed to get such slow, fluid camera movements during the time lapse is something I don't know, and don't really want to know. Let's keep the mystery. The movie also begins to focus on the human tragedies, such as homelessness, poverty, and even the Holocaust (this is where the movie becomes a little too creepy and tedious; one of it's very few flaws). But the last half hour goes back to focusing on ancient ruins, more tribal customs, and even more gorgeous nature scenery, and ends with a scene of almost transcendant quality.

I know that the movie was filmed by a crew of only 3 people, taking 14 months to shoot in over 25 countries. The footage they brought back is not what you'd expect, and that's why it's so stunning. The camera work is simply some of the best I've ever seen, in any film. It almost always moves, in such a smooth and flowing manner, gliding around or into some of the most intersting things I think this world has to offer. There's no standard shaky-cam documentary work going on here. The editing is more invisible than the cinematography, but just as important. It holds on shots for a long enough time that we can encompass all the wonderful things within the frame, but not so long that it loses our attention. Special attention must be paid to the music, which is simply one of the best film scores I've ever heard. I can't think of any other example where music and visuals were so indeliably linked in a movie. Mute this film, and you won't enjoy it. Half the experience is in the music, which is so weird, so unexplainable, yet so unmistakably beautiful and haunting and relaxing and enlightening. Very little of the film is played without music, and that's a good thing - the scenes without music wind up becoming slightly more tedious than the others.

I haven't done a good job at explaining the film. Well, maybe I've explained the content, but not the impact it has on the viewer. Many of you will be bored to death by the movie - that's fair, I guess. I showed it to three other film school friends last night, and two of them were so relaxed it put them to sleep. But I can't get enough of it. I'm not really sure what it all means, or what the special significance is behind the shots and why they were put together in the order they were. All I know is - this is not your ordinary, every day documentary, nor your ordinary every day movie. It's better than that. There's no voice over narrations telling you about the cultures we see. There's no subtitles on the bottom explaining what country we're in. There's no boring behind-the-scenes stuff explaining how the camera crew worked and what it all means. There's simply the visuals, and the music, and there they are, and here we are. Yes, the movie gets a little too creepy, and yes, it runs for a little too long (in my opinion, they should've cut out that entire disturbing sequence of the film, which sort of spoils the epic-beauty groove of the flick). But even with these flaws, it's one of the most powerful films I've ever seen. I love it to death. Go see it.