Samsara

Being the photo arsehole that I am, enjoying pictures at jaunty angles, my girlfriend bought me the remastered version of the 1992 film ‘Baraka’. Featuring some of the world’s beauty spots, and America, as well as (in)famous religious and political landscapes, the film is a documentary-like collection of lingering shots and sped-up scenes of the world as it rotates.

Remastered, the shots look stunning, despite being originally released at the same time as ‘Home Alone 2: Lost in New York’, and is a feast for the eye and mind. Twenty years on, ‘Samsara’ (Sanskrit for ‘to flow on’) is a follow up piece, shot by director Ron Fricke.

Again, probably shot over a number of years in a number of different countries and locations, ‘Samsara’ is very much more of the same from where ‘Baraka’ left off. Similar shots of a sped-up night sky over desert rocks are used, as well as various different religious figures going about their daily business. Having watched ‘Baraka’ only days before seeing it, you can wonder what the need for ‘Samsara’ is.

But while ‘Baraka’ focuses mainly on landscapes and geographic elements, its successor looks much more to human geography and images of modern humanity. This is probably where the film lacks a little, as shots of tattooed-up, LA gangbangers, the dancing Filipino prisoners of Cebu Provincial Detention and Rehabilitation Center (CPDRC) or the Ladyboys of Bangkok are neither new nor particularly that interesting. Rather than capturing people in more natural states in ‘Baraka’, here it feels like there are too many staged dance routines, performance art and a slightly forced image of a geisha sheading a single tear.

There is still room for the juxtapositions of those in one part of the world creating a vice for those in another: those in South America making the cigarettes for those in Japan to smoke becomes Chinese and Danish factory farming feeding obese Americans. Again though, these are not particularly new concepts or ideas – a difficulty when shooting a film over a number of years. Images of Chinese factories seem almost purely recycled from 2007’s ‘Manufactured Landscapes’ and only add to a sense of ‘it’s been done.’

But having said that, while ‘Samsara’ is no longer as original as what has come before it, it is still a good cinematic experience to see some of the more interesting spots on the planet shot from increasingly jaunty angles, and show that to make a film look superior all you need is good cinematography and some creativity…though I do still feel that my camerawork at Fushimi Inari Shrine in Kyoto is much better, as does everybody else.