User Reviews

During the 96 minutes, I feel like a bird crossing time and space.

I was amazed by the images and the camera technique. For just a few second images, the filmmaker have to overcome how many difficulties! What a spectacular job!

Moreover, the questions it brings to me strike me, and it makes me rethink about the human life. The contrast between the worlds and the cultures punch me so hard.

This movie is absolutely in my collection.

(1) A copy of Baraka. Steal it if you have to. (2) The biggest, clearest TV you can find and 5.1 surround. (3) A fabulously-rolled spleefer as long as your arm. (4) Phones off the hook, and an empty house with the lights out. (5) A recliner with a seat belt. (6) 96 minutes of your time.

I am 30 year old factory worker who loves NASCAR and Hockey and own 3 carbureted cars - 1 parked in my backyard that hasn't ran in 2 years AND I could probably pass for the guy who might spit as I offer you confusing directions if you stopped to ask, but I have never seen anything anywhere remotely close to this masterpiece. It's so good that it runs through my head while I'm slugging away at work covered in factory germs. The Burgan oil fires (the fire we possess) to the Australian steel workers (our ongoing need to keep the fire going) to the Auschwitz gas ovens (what we choose to do with it) is pure cinematic genius. For me, the Whirling Dervishes forward is my favorite scene. Where it slides from the mosque in Mecca to the cathedral ceiling at the Vatican is absolutely mind-bending. I feel like crying every time I watch it, yet I'm not all that religious.

Aside from all this film brings with it, it's not for everyone, and I can understand that. I was 17 when it came out and probably could have cared less. But for a blue-collar hick in need of a shave like me, I'd take this movie to prison if I was allowed.

When you see it for the first time, don't ask questions. Turn the volume up as loud as you can and just watch it. Baraka will provide you with everything you need. 10 thumbs out of 10, and not just up, but way up. Can't wait for the sequel.

'Baraka' is a work of art which rates amongst the greatest achievements in the field. As with any masterwork, it is something one will have to pursue. For those that seek it out at the proper time, 'Baraka' can act as a milestone of revelation. What the viewer takes from this film will solely be determined by the life experience they bring to it. 'Baraka' is unique in that it actually requires a commitment of time and concentration. This is a film that communicates its message without utilizing standard film language. Those that try to make the images conform to the conventional notions of Hollywood story telling are likely to give up in frustration. For a film with no plot,characters or dialog, it communicates an astonishing number of profound themes. Those who are familiar with National Geographic or the works of David Attenbourough will have little trouble in identifying the fascinating locals and tribes, but be forewarned: there are reasons that there are no subtitles or text on screen. Personal discovery is at the heart of the filmmaker's intentions. The ambient soundtrack by Michael Sterns weaves the images together on a separate plain, producing a hypnotic pathway for the images to flow. Once you allow yourself to be pulled along by this current of sound the images will link themselves together and the true revelations hidden within 'Baraka' will make themselves apparent. You may find as I did that your subconscious will be at work on 'Baraka' for many weeks after the experience, unlocking doors to a greater understanding.

Baraka is an ancient Sufi word, translated as a blessing or as the essence of life from which the evolutionary process unfolds. With the theme of man's diversity and his impact upon the environment, Baraka is a documentary photographed on six continents in 24 countries including Tanzania, China, Brazil, Japan, Nepal, the U.S. and Europe. It has no story and no dialogue, yet transcends geography and language to provide a sensual and spiritual experience that enables the viewer to look at the world in a totally different way.

When the film opens, a lone snow monkey sits in the middle of a hot spring, biding its time. The expression on its face is one of deep reflection and weariness. When it looks up at the stars, then closes its eyes, shutting itself off from its surroundings, I sensed my own inner longing for the infinite.

As the film progresses, we see the edge of a volcano in Hawaii, the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem, the Ryoan-Ji temple in Kyoto, Lake Natron in Tanzania, and the fire plains of Kuwait, their oil fires burning after the 1991 Gulf War. Through Fricke's camera, we glimpse various forms of religious expression from the chanting of monks to tribal celebrations in Africa and Brazil.

Baraka is almost like an updated version of Godfrey Reggio's 1983 film, Koyaanisqatsi. Using speeded-up images of hectic big city life with its homelessness and deprivation, interspersed with mountain vistas and forests, it depicts the mechanical nature of modern life as contrasted with the beauty of the natural world.

This film allowed me to see things I never knew existed, and to glimpse patterns of interconnectedness and a sense of balance and proportion in the world I was barely aware of. I was moved to simply look into people's faces and have them look back at me, allowing me to connect with the universality of the human spirit.

Fricke has said that Baraka was intended to be "a journey of rediscovery that plunges into nature, into history, into the human spirit and finally into the realm of the infinite." Unique in its beauty, sensitivity, and perception, Baraka succeeded, in the course of 90 minutes, in moving me from the humdrum of everyday reality to a calmer and more spiritual space

To do describe this work of art simply as a "movie" would be inaccurate and unjustified. More akin to a tone poem Baraka is.

Is this what the world would look like to a god, a being who experiences time differently than we do?

While Koyaanisqatsi effectively drilled its message, "Humans are destroying the planet!", into our hypnotized minds, Baraka lets you ponder and meditate its multiple meanings. Are humans just another part of the ecosystem, behaving as any other organism would with our capabilities? Or are we different, even alien, to this world?

10 out of 10.

Simply one of the most beautiful films you will ever see. If it's near you on the big screen, you must not miss it. Otherwise, pour a glass of wine, sit closer to the TV than your Mom would prefer, and drop in. Welcome to the world as it is in real, bigger-than-life images of humanity, and all the colors of the spectrum. It moves a bit slowly, but you'll want for more.

Very few movies can actually be truly inspirational. A lot of movies make you feel good while watching it. This is different. This movie can breathe life back into your soul. It will brighten your outlook. It will make you think and keep you thinking long after the movie has ended. And even the most bitter of cynics (like me) cannot deny it's beauty. It will always remain one of my favorites. I cannot make it my favorite movie since it is so powerful and different I don't consider it a movie but an experience. It requires just a smidge of patience to suck you into it. But once it does you cannot avert your eyes. The most spectacular images ever. Not an ounce of pretention to it. No hollwood bull. Brilliant. Moving music. Do not miss this!!!! If you have a DVD buy this one. Watching it on a small screen will severely cut it's impact.

This for me is the film for a desert Island...you know?...If you could only take, one book, one wine, one loaf of bread, one piece of music? One Lover, Well, this would be my one movie....This film in my opinion is so extraordinary that it needs as special 11 or 12 category, just as J.S. Bach, and Dickens, and Shakespeare would need such a category. This film is spellbinding and can be viewed and understood on many levels. I do not personally see or feel the "Environmental" message from this film that many do....or at least to me it is only one of many sub- texts....I do see an oil painting placed directly on my soul, or rather etched there by the sinews of this film, as a comment on man, all of his glory and wisdom, and all of his failings as well....that and so much more. For me this is the greatest film of all times. Nothing else even comes close...I could go on but I won't....to what end....if you have seen it and you wish to discuss it. write to me, I would be happy to hear from you on this wonderful film..

I think this is one of the finest movies that I've ever seen. There are times that I don't exactly understand the movie, but that's OK. I saw this movie on the big screen for the first time (and this is a movie where it truly makes a difference to see it on the big screen). My friend and I got out of the movie and said, "Can you believe what we just saw?"

I think it is one of the most beautiful movies that I've ever seen. One can argue whether the point that the director was trying to make was made or even needs to be made. I don't know. I just know that at the end of the movie, I was overwhelmed.

The most impressive part of Baraka is the beautiful photography. Almost every shot is made with such devotion. Some scenes are very overwhelming. But what I miss in this movie is coherence. Fricke tries to show too many things, too many different cultures, religions, a bit of bio industry, a bit of burning oil fields, a bit koyaanisqatsi etc. It's not fully clear what he's trying to say, let alone that he confronts with a strong opinion. That already shows in the way the beginning is edited, shots aren't fully finished before they cut to the next shot, it almost feels (ironically enough) like he's got too little time to show everything he wants to.

It's interesting that Ron Fricke was director of photography of Koyaanisqatsi which was released about 9 years earlier. Koyaanisqatsi (same IMDB user rating!) does have that coherence, that strong opinion which you can't get around while watching it. All means, style, music editing etc. are used to serve this one purpose: to let the spectator experience this overpopulated, overstressed world.

In my opinion, Fricke should have focused on less different subjects and connect them by a much stronger and clearer message. That would have turned Baraka into a master piece. (I wonder why I see so many people on the credits who worked on Koyanisqatsi too, except for one person: Godfrey Reggio, the director. Does that have to do with clashing opinions on this kind of movies, which may explain the difference between these two movies?)

BARAKA is a 1993 film, shot by Ron Fricke in some 24 countries, that is a sort of documentary on three universal themes: 1) the grandeur of the natural world, from the peaks of Everest to low deserts, 2) the oneness of the human race illustrated by juxtaposing almost identical shots from vastly separated cultures, and 3) the desire for a connection with something transcendent. Shot in 70mm film, watching the Bluray on a projector or a large-screen television offers one of the most visually stunning cinematic experiences around. There is no dialogue or voice-over, no characters, but the enormous amount of footage is presented here in a way that gives BARAKA a gripping dramatic arc, and it's a sequence that, on repeated viewings, increasingly seems the most matter-of-course way in which all this could have been edited.

With unquenchable anthropological curiosity, Fricke identifies commonalities that link us all. A shot of a Japanese mafioso's tattoos, for example, are followed immediately by a shot of the same on an indigenous resident of Papua New Guinea. But's not only exotic tribalism. A shot of Japanese schoolgirls looking at the camera is mirrored later by an almost identical shot of low-caste girls in Calcutta. Don't expect a mushy call for tolerance; Fricke's editing indeed makes a convincing case for appreciating differences, but there is nuance.

Fricke's occasional use of footage from churches, mosques, temples, etc. is less an advocacy for belief in religion than an extension of the commonalities he identifies. Human beings have an urge for contemplation as solace among the complicated and sometimes senseless world around them, and they draw on inner sources of mercy to go against the cruelty that people show to their fellow man. The consequences of a world cut adrift from calm and compassion are shown during a heartbreaking sequence that ranges from Auschwitz and the Cambodian killing fields to homeless across the globe and teenage prostitutes in a Bangkok nightclub.

The footage is accompanied by an array of musical pieces which help to set the mood for each series of shots: minimalist loops form the soundtrack for scenes of industrial production, we hear harsh bagpipes as the camera tours the burning oil fields of Kuwait, and Dead Can Dance's "The Host of Seraphim" plays during an indictment of poverty worldwide. Some of musicians involved are rather New-Agey and would never have a place in my music listening, but when integrated into the film they are remarkably effective. The 5.1 surround sound excellently balances cinematic effect and faithfulness to the scenes portrayed.

I've watched BARAKA many times now, each time discovering many new things and always being moved, whether to pity (Calcutta garbage-pickers) or wonder (the unreal glittering hall of Shiraz's Shahcheragh mausoleum). I would certainly rank it among my favourite films. Will you like it? That's hard to say. BARAKA is my go-to Bluray when friends and family want to try out my fancy home theatre setup with HD projector and surround sound, and while some of them have been just as stunned as I am, others don't really care. Apparently many people, even those with a well-rounded education, don't have much curiosity for things outside their own everyday experience, and so Fricke's survey of world cultures doesn't resonate with them.

(Note that while Fricke created a 2011 follow-up called SAMSARA, I would recommend staying away from it, as it is less focused and only repeats BARAKA to diminishing effect.)

I finally caught up with the film some 13 years after it was made at the recently concluded Dubai International Film Festival. To my regret I missed meeting the director Ron Fricke.

Ron Fricke had played a very important part in the film "Koyaanisqatsi" one of my favorite films. He was the lens-man and co-writer. "Koyaanisqatsi" was aided by two other brilliant minds--the director Godfrey Reggio and minimalist musician Philip Glass.

"Baraka" or the essence of life did not have inputs of Reggio or Glass. On the other hand Fricke had better equipment (65 mm/70 mm cameras, polymorphic lenses and 10 years of added experience post-"Koyaanisqatsi") for making "Baraka" than in the path-breaking Reggio film. The superb early scenes of the mountain primates apart, "Baraka" provides entertainment and viewer satisfaction that is simply overshadowed by the philosophical and structural brilliance of the Reggio trilogy. I wonder why Reggio did not use Fricke in the last two works in the trilogy.

Fricke's eye for visuals is commendable. But "Baraka" misses the spirituality of Reggio, it merely strives to copy Reggio's work. Probably Reggio's years of solitude and prayer as he prepared to be a monk gave him the philosophical edge over Fricke's obvious craftsmanship. While I am not devaluing the obvious merits of "Baraka" I really wish Fricke, Reggio and glass team up again to make another film to relive the magic of "Koyaanisqatsi".

If one can even call this pompous indulgence of the wet dreams of a cinematographer a "movie," it's not a very good one. With all due respect to Ron Fricke, a master of camera-work (and absolute god of time-lapse photography), his film would be greatly improved by the presence of an actual director. Every shot in the film is fabulously composed, perfectly executed, and left to mold on the screen until every bit of life is drained from it. That part of the audience which manages to stay awake is rewarded with nothing but more endless tedium, as Fricke drills his environmentalist message into our heads with all the subtlety and grace of a jackhammer outside an apartment window.

Particularly offensive is Fricke's conceit (the natural one of a cinematographer) that this material can be presented absolutely objectively, without any consideration of context or (God forbid!) perspective. The viewer thus must either shut down his or her mind and nod dumbly along with the grating score, or face 90 minutes of utter revulsion - as happened in my case. Recommended only for the particularly agreeable, the insomniac, or the time-lapse photography enthusiast.

When I first experienced (that's the most striking word for it) this movie at the Gothenburg Film Festival 1994, I was truly amazed. Never before - or since - have I had such an over all explain-it-all feeling after a show.

Ron Fricke has made a documentary about the World today for a day: starting at dawn with monkeys in hot springs in Japan, and the morning rituals of various religions. This is followed by the awakening of the human race, both in the big cities and on the country side. Brilliantly edited together follows every aspect of human daily life combined with the general changes of the planet itself and all the ecological systems upon it.

The over all glue of the story are the various religious rituals. Maybe this is my personal interpretation, being a teacher of Religion, but the only time giver, except for the turning of the sun, are the praying times and times of worship peoples practice around the globe.

My comparison of the film to the GAIA idea (that the Earth as a whole being a unit, a living organism) is detectable both in the way every different cultures shown are found to be very similar to one another, as well as the speeded up people at side walks and zebra crossings look very much like the stream of blood in the veins of an organism.

All in all this is a marvellous movie pointing out both the uniqueness of the individual and the unity with all people. Go see it - now!

You can disagree with the message or put your expectations on other subjects which need to be enlightened based on what you feel is important. But to vote it down with one star does say a lot about yourself. The message is clear and true, the music is picked out in harmony with the images even if you don't like both. Could go on like this forever but I won't.

The things is, we as a audiance, when we agree on something or not need to vote the truth. Lies destroy future productions , that's what I think. Vote a 6 fine, vote a 1, that's a simple lie.

Come on people, we are grown ups I thought...

If we have a soul, Baraka may well have captured it. Using stunning, Earth-roaming photography projected alongside a haunting sonic landscape, interposed with raw, intimate shots of individuals, with visual juxtapositions that capture the paradoxes of humanity, Baraka is a multidimensional, almost sculptural love letter to mankind. 27 years after its first screening, this film still has the power to take your breath away, and inspire you to not take the world we have for granted. Although elements of Baraka are arguably contrived, so too is every great endeavour mankind has undertaken. The artistry is in the contrivance, in finding the common rhythms of our world, the resonances and the contrasts. This 20th Century work will be moving people well into the 22nd century, if people are still here to appreciate it.

It guides you through a journey of the soul. You'll never experience something quite the same. Expect Samsara, the continuation of this documentary, maybe. I saw, at first, the second one, but couldn't resist the temptation to see the "root" of this beautiful idea to have a doc without hearing humans speak over the images & music that aligns with the shown landscapes, sceneries, etc.

Having participated in the production of "Koyaanisqatsi" and then directed the similar "Chronos", Ron Fricke made "Baraka", another wordless documentary consisting entirely of assorted images of the world. We see cultures compared and contrasted, and also the natural world contrasted with city life. There's all sorts of diversity on the planet that we call home.

It's a testament to Fricke's talent that he accomplished all this without even a syllable of narration. He and his crew traveled to every continent except Antarctica to show these things, as well as the threats to the natural world.

Basically, it's a documentary that you just have to see. An absolutely impressive production. Having seen this one and his previous work, I'm now eager to see his "Samsara".

This is a moving film, with beautiful photography. I could not recommend it highly enough! I think many of the critics on this site have missed the point of what Baraka has to say. Yes, we know about modern medicine, and electricity, and what the Romans have done for us. Baraka isn't some Luddite, back-to-nature manifesto. It is simply an emotional connection with some of the more remarkable features of Earth and humanity in the late 20th Century. Some of it is beautiful, some of it is sad, some of it is awesome, some of it is messed up. If we had to send a documentary about our planet to an alien race, without the use of language, Baraka would be perfect. This film will not stroke your ego or give you some action adventure hero to identify with. What it will give you, if you have any sense of wonder left in your cynical 21st century head, is a spellbinding, spine-tingling, goosebumpy look at your own world.

Beautiful yet ugly Peaceful yet loud Calm yet shaking Young yet old Alive yet dead Divine yet haunting Kind yet cruel Peace yet war Creation yet destruction Quiet yet screaming Bright yet dark Sweet yet sour

It is natural to compare Baraka with Koyaanisqatsi. The two films are similarly structured, both sans dialog, both a collage of video images set to nontraditional music.

Baraka is without a doubt the more visually beautiful of the two. Many of the images here are, almost literally, poetry in motion; others are among the most awe-inspiring I've seen anywhere.

On the other hand, the complaints of some of the other reviewers about the editing are not without foundation. Whereas initially the central themes seem to be the wonders of the natural world and the various manners of worship of societies around the world, we are somewhat surprised to find segments showing an egg production facility, Taiwanese prostitutes, and scavengers at a Calcutta landfill. We are left wondering about relevance, and suspect that the editor unwisely indulged an urge to make a quick and none-too-subtle political point.

Equally importantly, the images in Baraka often depict quite exceptional scenes or places--the gas chambers at Auschwitz, say, or the pilgrims at Mecca, or various other religious monuments. Thus Baraka more or less forfeits any claim to be about "ordinary life" or somesuch.

Koyaanisqatsi, on the other hand, hewed to ordinary images from more-or-less ordinary life pretty much from beginning to end; one exception may have been the dynamiting of a housing project, and of course there is the final image of the rocket disintegrating. But for nearly its entire length it stuck to a central theme, contrasting man's world with the natural world. Thus it carries meaning precisely by virtue of its rather more ordinary (but nonetheless often quite beautiful) images, whereas Baraka seems to have largely forsaken deeper meaning in the pursuit of stunning visuals.

So there you have it. Both are very valuable works, but in rather different ways. Baraka is not entirely bereft of meaning, of course, but what meaning there is derives from the individual images, and not from the film as a whole.

Absolutely magnificent , You won't regret watching it , 98 minutes that will travel you around the world. After watching you might question everything you're living in.

I'm shocked

"Baraka" is a visual odyssey - a sort of 70mm moving post card tour of planet earth done with artistry in sight and sound. With lots of slow pans which dwell on the mystery and beauty of exotic cultures and countries and a 96 minute run there's not sufficient time to do the planet justice. Nonetheless, "Baraka" is a worthy and ambitious project which will likely have limited appeal among the general filmgoing public. Kudos to Fricke for showing us places not seen much outside the pages of National Geographic.