Brick Wall 1/13/14

    When someone thinks of a movie, generally the first thought that pops into mind is not something without words or any form of dialogue. However, the film Baraka, is just that. It contains only music and the brief sound of something on camera. A movie without discourage must be completely empty and boring right? Wrong. Baraka takes images from around the world and shows just how powerful image alone can be. It even relates to things learned in first semester, such as the Gaia theory in Lord of the Flies. The Gaia theory explains how all things are connected, just as Baraka shows the similarities that countries of all cultures have. For example, people of all religions have very similar rituals and practices. We also the connection of things like urban life leading to unhappiness and the tribal rituals of places that may be on opposite sides of the globe. Mary Anne Brussat talks of a compassion that travels throughout the world. We see "... the Buddhists in their temples, the Christians in their churches, the Jews at the Western Wall in Jerusalem, the Islamic believers in their mosques, and the Hindus along the sacred river Ganges." (Brussat 2). All of these religions worshiping different things in different places, yet still showing compassion and gratitude for something. Another example of a way that Baraka influences compassion onto its viewers is the images of the chickens going from egg to adult. These animals are brutally treated and thrown around like something that doesn't have a heart beat. Although no one in the scenes show it, compassion flows out of this part of the film by giving the viewers an up close look at what happens behind the scenes of our daily lives. One moment I found very thought-provoking that Brusset barely mentioned was the scene where a monk seems to be doing a sort of meditative walking through a very crowded urban street. Everyone simply walks around him, barely noticing him, while he appears to be focusing hard on his surroundings. Just one of the few moment in Baraka where two things contrast each other very sharply.

One of the most stunning features about this film was the way the music, sound, and camera views changed the way that everything appeared on screen. The music fit the mood of the scene, or rather set the mood of the scene. If the scene of mass producing chick-lets was played with a background of happy "carnival" music, it may have appeared funny or harmless at first glance. The same way that the camera captured close-up views of scared tribal children and old Hindu men watching carefully. In my case, finding the meaning of a film like this is very difficult, simply because I have the emotional range of a brick wall. However, I can see what Ron Fricke (the director) was trying to get across to his audience. It is clear that Fricke wants viewers to not only see the difference in cultures aorund the world, but to feel their struggles as well. I believe that the meaning of the whole thing is to not only sympathize with the less fortunate, but to help them. In conclusion, Baraka is a stunning work of visual masterpiece, an emotional look into the world, and an overall intriguing experience.