The most profound scene for me was the very last scene; the images of ruins under the moonlit sky. It captured the whole point of this movie, well, at least to me it did.
Baraka showed image after endless image of the human race and how we have become like ants. It suggested to me that we have become endlessly involved in our busy lives. It also showed other images of other countries, where people are crammed and living in bad conditions. It showed our lives in all different forms of it. It reminded me of a saying I've heard; "People live in quiet desperation."
And then came the ruins at the very end. The entire movie I was a little confused at the fact that it kept switching between the present busy lives, crammed lives, unhappy lives, busy lives, happy lives, lives of a human being, with the ghosts of the past. For some reason, it seemed to become relevant to me at the end. This entire complex life we have created, just like the ancients did, will some day be ruins, just like their empires were. It was a sad realization... But at the same time, didn't seem that bad, it just seems like fate.
The scene that stood out to me the most was the chicks passing through the various inspections and conveyor belts being compared to the humans crammed onto the subways. In either situation, the person or chick is likely to be miserable, and the impersonal way in which the chicks were inspected and then tossed all together and crammed so tightly was reminiscent of the way people are shuffled through the inspections in the subway system, and then all crammed together to get somewhere, regardless of comfort. The most horrifying part was seeing the chicks beaks being burnt. It's one of those things that you hear about and read about, but isn't really real until you actually see it being done. My favorite part of the film by far was the opening scene with the Japanese Macaque sitting in the hot spring. The image of the macaque sitting in the hot water, covered in frost and set against the snowy background was really quite beautiful.
I too enjoyed the comparison between the chicks and the people in the subway. Another interesting part is where some tribesmen were decorating themselves with body paint and using a modern haircomb to apply it. The comb wasn’t being used to style hair, but it was being used to style patterns with paint. The purpose of the comb thus does not change much.
It seemed that many parts of the movie were intended to give people a view of other cultures without contextual dialogue to bias anything. In that regard it follows more of what a sociologist would try to do: observe without disrupting the culture. Seeing many exotic cultures through the lens of a camera is the best way that the audience can observe without being disruptive.
To me, the images of Auschwitz and Tuol Sleng were the most powerful. Most of the film was concerned with what people were "doing"- religion, travel, ritual- but the images of the concentration centers were about what people had "done." It was sobering to see so many busy activities that were full of life and activity next to halls where people were tortured and murdered.
It was just... interesting to consider that the world was connected by their chants and religious dances or ceremonies, subways and traffic, but also by destruction and cruelty. It was a glimpse that all parts of the world have their history of genocide or murder. Seeing the empty halls of places that have not been forgotten but are certainly... taboo and avoided, it made me think about their preservation as "places." Auschwitz and Tuol Sleng are certainly uncomfortable for the survivors and perpetrators and everyone who wasn't even involved... but I feel like their existence and preservation is important. There are still terrible things that go on in the world, and keeping the places of destruction alive can at least remind everyone, on a personal level, that they should never do such a thing.
The only images from Baraka that managed to capture my attention were the ones that included people in them, or human environments. All the scenes with nature in them seemed to be seriously lacking a David Attenborough voice over. However, it wasn’t all dull. One scene in particular that drew me in was the one with the chanting South Asian (I’m assuming), tribe acting out a war of some sort. I was instantly attracted to the way they moved as a whole and communicated in a nonverbal way. Observing that ornate ritual was so unlike anything I had ever seen before; I could have watched it for hours. To me the scene exemplified how Baraka explores ideas like the concept of self, the ritualistic nature of being, and the idea of community, without ever reducing these concepts to clichés. I actually tried to watch another film very similar to this one, Koyaanisqatsi, at home but I only made it about fifteen minutes in before getting too bored. I feel as if the same thing might have happened if I had been watching Baraka in the classroom. Thankfully, I feel as if the way Baraka was presented (in a movie theater) was especially conducive to the subject matter and style in which Baraka was filmed.
Since my focus is not really art, I was unsure how I would feel about the movie, before viewing it. However, after watching Baraka, I was amazed at how much it "hit at home" with me. Since my main focus, major deals with Cultural Studies, I really appreciated the connections between cultures and us as humans. There was no particular scene that really struck me but rather, the whole transition of the film, really caught my attention. The fact that the film could go from tribal scenes to fast paced life, to the tranquility of mountains, waterfalls or more natural aspects, really resonated with me. What amazes me about studying cultures is the connections between us all and the connections between our lives today and those of the past. Many people want to assume other traditions, cultures, or lifestyles as weird. However, there are so many connections and similarities between us all and all of our ancestors, it is amazing. This film did not use any words to transition between scenes, there was no explanation needed because it is art in the world of relations and connections among humans, that we are all so connected.
I also do agree with Jamie that the fact that the movie was presented in a classroom, among classmates may have made a difference. If I had watched this alone at home I may have written it off quickly. This is striking to me as I see a theme between the connection with the film because we were with each other.
I was not sure what to expect when I Baraka started. For a while I was just taking in all the images and not knowing how to interpret their meanings. Though I am sure everyone is class analyzed the movie differently, what seemed most important to me was the order in which the images were organized. To me, the order in which the images were put gave them even more meaning than seeing them by themselves. Though this movie does not have a clear narrative, or a narrative at all really, I think it still able to convey meaning; and I think it is the order of the images that help share this meaning, or meanings.
The first time I noticed the importance of the order of images was when people with tribal body paint were shown in conjunction with an image of a man with a tattoo that covered the majority of his body. Seeing these images back to back was very surprising. This comparison, and others made throughout the movie that were similar to it, made me think about the people of the world. By showing people from all over the world and their culture, customs, and rituals really showed how vastly different people are, yet managed to point out similarities at the same time.
The sheer amount of images that Baraka presents are wonderful, enthralling and powerful. The fact that this film does not contain a dialogue does not take away from its cinematic prowess but rather enhances it in a different perspective. When we were watching the movie, I was amazed at all the different shots of cities placed in contrast to the shots of indigenous people in South America and Africa; this juxtaposition is both subtle and outspoken as the differences and similarities in lifestyle all speak to one another. I remember being amazed by the amount of lives the camera was able to capture in all of the different perspectives of industrialized and developed cities.
As always, the scenes of the chicken factory have resounded heavily with me. The sheer amount of poultry that are processed every day in that factory are mind numbing. When I think of the amount of chicken that are grown, fed, live, and die in there it really reminds me of the human race more than anything, mostly because we consume those creatures for sustenance. It is a powerful notion that we have harnessed and bred animals like this and even though their lives are just intended to be brought to an end to continue another, they seem so insignificant and unaware of everything around them.
Another resoundingly powerful image is the funeral pyre shown along the river. I'm not sure what river exactly, but at any rate it had a high amount of traffic both living and dead. It appears to me that the bodies are sent downstream or bathed in the water of the river, then they are anointed with smoke and set ablaze. It is always a powerful sight to witness a funeral or any similar event; such a strong reminder of our mortality, it often has the profound ability to draw silence from the chattiest of individuals and inspire them with awe. The fact that people also bathed in the same waters, all around one another and even while dead bodies were in the same body of water astonishes me because that is a great vector for disease yet everyone seemed excited and enthralled to be there.
This movie so perfectly encapsulates the idea of place as a means of expression. As one watches the movie, it's hard to even notice the lack of real dialogue because you are so effortlessly tuned into the language of the imagery. Even the one point where there is spoken language, you really can't understand it and it's as though the people themselves are one with that place, the ebb and flow of their chants one with the ebb and flow of their home. It uses simple visual observation (and a generous sprinkling of trippy music) to really characterize place as a part of life and a part of humanity.
Marshall Mcluhan famously claimed that "the medium is the message", and I've found year after year that this statement rings more true. Baraka carries in its cryptic and fantastically beautiful film snippets from across the planet so many messages, none explicit, but hundreds implied, about the human condition and, indeed, the condition of the planet at large and all its inhabitants' roles. But no aspect of the film is quite so profound as its directorial choice to omit all understandable spoken language. It made me feel like an alien intruder; here was my planet, but with no language to explain or discuss or remember, only images. It actually takes words away from you, as it's hard to think of anything that could aptly sum up the viewing experience. You are stranded without language, in the most fantastic and unimaginable places in the world. But if we, the viewer, are stranded, the people (and animals, and objects) in the film know exactly where they belong, slotted into place by their culture and customs. It is hard to imagine just how cultures can spring from places, but Baraka sheds some light on the matter just through the sheer diversity of cultures coupled with the sheer diversity of places. It shows the causal effects of place upon culture, and subsequently of culture upon people, and finally of people upon place - most shockingly through the noisy buzz of a chainsaw on a falling, crackling tree. It shows us an amazing cycle that we, surprisingly, are a part of, though it is difficult to remember that under the trance of the film.
Without a doubt the segment of the film that I found very interesting was the section that was comparing humans crowded in subway stations to young baby chickens on conveyer belts. While at first I thought the inclusion of the chicks was somewhat comical I slowly began to feel differently, especially when the camera showed the chicks falling through the air, from one conveyer belt to another. I thought the film cut between the scenes of the crowded chickens to scenes of humans in the exact same scenario in a way that highlighted how we put ourselves in the exact same situations as animals without even realizing it. This scene made me think of times in which I have felt more like an animal on a conveyer belt instead of a human with choices to make, I thought this was a somewhat prevalent theme throughout the film.
On a slightly different note, I thought the most frightening and unsettling scene in the film was the scene of the three Asian women performing some kind of dance. I think their appearance was more ghost then human, and the way they moved together was also pretty unnerving. Another reason why I may have found this scene so disturbing was probably because (if I am remembering correctly) it seemed to come out of nowhere, and it was so vivid that I could not look away, it had me, which just added more to the films awesomeness.
Bakara was a very surprising film. I was expecting it to be powerful, but as I was watching the natural scenes, I was not expecting it to later show the industrial scenes. The waterfall scenes were very powerful to me and they actually made me very calm. The water was everywhere and it seemed to majestically disappear into midair. It was almost fantastical to watch. I still don't quite believe that places like that exist on this Earth even though logically I know its true. Interestingly, the film as a while gave me this sense of calm tension. Things were unnerving at times, yet the whole atmosphere of the movie was oddly peaceful. This experience happened when I saw the chickens on the conveyor belt and then the hens in the warehouse. It was extremely unnerving for me to see those birds living that way, yet with the music and the way the scene was demonstrated it was oddly calm at the same time. It was a pensive sort of discomfort. I think the point was to make me really think about the scene in front of me and it worked. It made me realize how many things actually go on behind the scenes that we don't know about. I actually feel guilty eating chickens now.
The most profound scene for me was the very last scene; the images of ruins under the moonlit sky. It captured the whole point of this movie, well, at least to me it did.
ReplyDeleteBaraka showed image after endless image of the human race and how we have become like ants. It suggested to me that we have become endlessly involved in our busy lives. It also showed other images of other countries, where people are crammed and living in bad conditions. It showed our lives in all different forms of it. It reminded me of a saying I've heard; "People live in quiet desperation."
And then came the ruins at the very end. The entire movie I was a little confused at the fact that it kept switching between the present busy lives, crammed lives, unhappy lives, busy lives, happy lives, lives of a human being, with the ghosts of the past. For some reason, it seemed to become relevant to me at the end. This entire complex life we have created, just like the ancients did, will some day be ruins, just like their empires were. It was a sad realization... But at the same time, didn't seem that bad, it just seems like fate.
The scene that stood out to me the most was the chicks passing through the various inspections and conveyor belts being compared to the humans crammed onto the subways. In either situation, the person or chick is likely to be miserable, and the impersonal way in which the chicks were inspected and then tossed all together and crammed so tightly was reminiscent of the way people are shuffled through the inspections in the subway system, and then all crammed together to get somewhere, regardless of comfort.
ReplyDeleteThe most horrifying part was seeing the chicks beaks being burnt. It's one of those things that you hear about and read about, but isn't really real until you actually see it being done.
My favorite part of the film by far was the opening scene with the Japanese Macaque sitting in the hot spring. The image of the macaque sitting in the hot water, covered in frost and set against the snowy background was really quite beautiful.
I too enjoyed the comparison between the chicks and the people in the subway. Another interesting part is where some tribesmen were decorating themselves with body paint and using a modern haircomb to apply it. The comb wasn’t being used to style hair, but it was being used to style patterns with paint. The purpose of the comb thus does not change much.
ReplyDeleteIt seemed that many parts of the movie were intended to give people a view of other cultures without contextual dialogue to bias anything. In that regard it follows more of what a sociologist would try to do: observe without disrupting the culture. Seeing many exotic cultures through the lens of a camera is the best way that the audience can observe without being disruptive.
To me, the images of Auschwitz and Tuol Sleng were the most powerful. Most of the film was concerned with what people were "doing"- religion, travel, ritual- but the images of the concentration centers were about what people had "done." It was sobering to see so many busy activities that were full of life and activity next to halls where people were tortured and murdered.
ReplyDeleteIt was just... interesting to consider that the world was connected by their chants and religious dances or ceremonies, subways and traffic, but also by destruction and cruelty. It was a glimpse that all parts of the world have their history of genocide or murder. Seeing the empty halls of places that have not been forgotten but are certainly... taboo and avoided, it made me think about their preservation as "places." Auschwitz and Tuol Sleng are certainly uncomfortable for the survivors and perpetrators and everyone who wasn't even involved... but I feel like their existence and preservation is important. There are still terrible things that go on in the world, and keeping the places of destruction alive can at least remind everyone, on a personal level, that they should never do such a thing.
The only images from Baraka that managed to capture my attention were the ones that included people in them, or human environments. All the scenes with nature in them seemed to be seriously lacking a David Attenborough voice over. However, it wasn’t all dull. One scene in particular that drew me in was the one with the chanting South Asian (I’m assuming), tribe acting out a war of some sort. I was instantly attracted to the way they moved as a whole and communicated in a nonverbal way. Observing that ornate ritual was so unlike anything I had ever seen before; I could have watched it for hours. To me the scene exemplified how Baraka explores ideas like the concept of self, the ritualistic nature of being, and the idea of community, without ever reducing these concepts to clichés.
ReplyDeleteI actually tried to watch another film very similar to this one, Koyaanisqatsi, at home but I only made it about fifteen minutes in before getting too bored. I feel as if the same thing might have happened if I had been watching Baraka in the classroom. Thankfully, I feel as if the way Baraka was presented (in a movie theater) was especially conducive to the subject matter and style in which Baraka was filmed.
Since my focus is not really art, I was unsure how I would feel about the movie, before viewing it. However, after watching Baraka, I was amazed at how much it "hit at home" with me. Since my main focus, major deals with Cultural Studies, I really appreciated the connections between cultures and us as humans. There was no particular scene that really struck me but rather, the whole transition of the film, really caught my attention. The fact that the film could go from tribal scenes to fast paced life, to the tranquility of mountains, waterfalls or more natural aspects, really resonated with me. What amazes me about studying cultures is the connections between us all and the connections between our lives today and those of the past. Many people want to assume other traditions, cultures, or lifestyles as weird. However, there are so many connections and similarities between us all and all of our ancestors, it is amazing. This film did not use any words to transition between scenes, there was no explanation needed because it is art in the world of relations and connections among humans, that we are all so connected.
ReplyDeleteI also do agree with Jamie that the fact that the movie was presented in a classroom, among classmates may have made a difference. If I had watched this alone at home I may have written it off quickly. This is striking to me as I see a theme between the connection with the film because we were with each other.
I was not sure what to expect when I Baraka started. For a while I was just taking in all the images and not knowing how to interpret their meanings. Though I am sure everyone is class analyzed the movie differently, what seemed most important to me was the order in which the images were organized. To me, the order in which the images were put gave them even more meaning than seeing them by themselves. Though this movie does not have a clear narrative, or a narrative at all really, I think it still able to convey meaning; and I think it is the order of the images that help share this meaning, or meanings.
ReplyDeleteThe first time I noticed the importance of the order of images was when people with tribal body paint were shown in conjunction with an image of a man with a tattoo that covered the majority of his body. Seeing these images back to back was very surprising. This comparison, and others made throughout the movie that were similar to it, made me think about the people of the world. By showing people from all over the world and their culture, customs, and rituals really showed how vastly different people are, yet managed to point out similarities at the same time.
The sheer amount of images that Baraka presents are wonderful, enthralling and powerful. The fact that this film does not contain a dialogue does not take away from its cinematic prowess but rather enhances it in a different perspective. When we were watching the movie, I was amazed at all the different shots of cities placed in contrast to the shots of indigenous people in South America and Africa; this juxtaposition is both subtle and outspoken as the differences and similarities in lifestyle all speak to one another. I remember being amazed by the amount of lives the camera was able to capture in all of the different perspectives of industrialized and developed cities.
ReplyDeleteAs always, the scenes of the chicken factory have resounded heavily with me. The sheer amount of poultry that are processed every day in that factory are mind numbing. When I think of the amount of chicken that are grown, fed, live, and die in there it really reminds me of the human race more than anything, mostly because we consume those creatures for sustenance. It is a powerful notion that we have harnessed and bred animals like this and even though their lives are just intended to be brought to an end to continue another, they seem so insignificant and unaware of everything around them.
Another resoundingly powerful image is the funeral pyre shown along the river. I'm not sure what river exactly, but at any rate it had a high amount of traffic both living and dead. It appears to me that the bodies are sent downstream or bathed in the water of the river, then they are anointed with smoke and set ablaze. It is always a powerful sight to witness a funeral or any similar event; such a strong reminder of our mortality, it often has the profound ability to draw silence from the chattiest of individuals and inspire them with awe. The fact that people also bathed in the same waters, all around one another and even while dead bodies were in the same body of water astonishes me because that is a great vector for disease yet everyone seemed excited and enthralled to be there.
This movie so perfectly encapsulates the idea of place as a means of expression. As one watches the movie, it's hard to even notice the lack of real dialogue because you are so effortlessly tuned into the language of the imagery. Even the one point where there is spoken language, you really can't understand it and it's as though the people themselves are one with that place, the ebb and flow of their chants one with the ebb and flow of their home. It uses simple visual observation (and a generous sprinkling of trippy music) to really characterize place as a part of life and a part of humanity.
ReplyDeletePaul
Marshall Mcluhan famously claimed that "the medium is the message", and I've found year after year that this statement rings more true. Baraka carries in its cryptic and fantastically beautiful film snippets from across the planet so many messages, none explicit, but hundreds implied, about the human condition and, indeed, the condition of the planet at large and all its inhabitants' roles. But no aspect of the film is quite so profound as its directorial choice to omit all understandable spoken language. It made me feel like an alien intruder; here was my planet, but with no language to explain or discuss or remember, only images. It actually takes words away from you, as it's hard to think of anything that could aptly sum up the viewing experience. You are stranded without language, in the most fantastic and unimaginable places in the world. But if we, the viewer, are stranded, the people (and animals, and objects) in the film know exactly where they belong, slotted into place by their culture and customs. It is hard to imagine just how cultures can spring from places, but Baraka sheds some light on the matter just through the sheer diversity of cultures coupled with the sheer diversity of places. It shows the causal effects of place upon culture, and subsequently of culture upon people, and finally of people upon place - most shockingly through the noisy buzz of a chainsaw on a falling, crackling tree. It shows us an amazing cycle that we, surprisingly, are a part of, though it is difficult to remember that under the trance of the film.
ReplyDeleteWithout a doubt the segment of the film that I found very interesting was the section that was comparing humans crowded in subway stations to young baby chickens on conveyer belts. While at first I thought the inclusion of the chicks was somewhat comical I slowly began to feel differently, especially when the camera showed the chicks falling through the air, from one conveyer belt to another. I thought the film cut between the scenes of the crowded chickens to scenes of humans in the exact same scenario in a way that highlighted how we put ourselves in the exact same situations as animals without even realizing it. This scene made me think of times in which I have felt more like an animal on a conveyer belt instead of a human with choices to make, I thought this was a somewhat prevalent theme throughout the film.
ReplyDeleteOn a slightly different note, I thought the most frightening and unsettling scene in the film was the scene of the three Asian women performing some kind of dance. I think their appearance was more ghost then human, and the way they moved together was also pretty unnerving. Another reason why I may have found this scene so disturbing was probably because (if I am remembering correctly) it seemed to come out of nowhere, and it was so vivid that I could not look away, it had me, which just added more to the films awesomeness.
Bakara was a very surprising film. I was expecting it to be powerful, but as I was watching the natural scenes, I was not expecting it to later show the industrial scenes. The waterfall scenes were very powerful to me and they actually made me very calm. The water was everywhere and it seemed to majestically disappear into midair. It was almost fantastical to watch. I still don't quite believe that places like that exist on this Earth even though logically I know its true.
ReplyDeleteInterestingly, the film as a while gave me this sense of calm tension. Things were unnerving at times, yet the whole atmosphere of the movie was oddly peaceful. This experience happened when I saw the chickens on the conveyor belt and then the hens in the warehouse. It was extremely unnerving for me to see those birds living that way, yet with the music and the way the scene was demonstrated it was oddly calm at the same time. It was a pensive sort of discomfort. I think the point was to make me really think about the scene in front of me and it worked. It made me realize how many things actually go on behind the scenes that we don't know about. I actually feel guilty eating chickens now.