Product description

Baraka [1993]

Price: £14.82
RRP: £19.99
Average customer rating: 4.5

Binding : DVD
EAN : 5028836030249
Label : Second Sight Films Ltd.
Manufacturer : Second Sight Films Ltd.
Publisher : Second Sight Films Ltd.
Release date : 2001-09-17
Title : Baraka [1993]
Audience rating : Parental Guidance
Format : Array
Languages : Array
Number of items : 1
Original release date : 1993-07-16
Region code : 0
Running time : 92
Studio : Second Sight Films Ltd.
Theatrical releaseDate : 1993-11
Number of discs : 1

Editorial reviews

Amazon.co.uk Review
Baraka is a non-narrative visual poem addressing, according to director Ron Fricke, "humanity's relationship with the eternal." The title means "breath of life" or "a blessing" and the film unfolds into a tapestry of global images shot over 13 months in 24 countries, comparable to, but far more ambitious than Koyaanisqatsi (1983) which Fricke also wrote, edited and photographed. Like Bernardo Bertolucci's similarly meditative Little Buddha (1993), Baraka was designed as a powerful audio-visual experience, one of a handful of films made in the 1990s to revive the immensely cinematic 70mm process.

Filled with staggeringly beautiful vistas which are striking, rich in detail and immaculately composed, the screen is complemented by an immersive Dolby Digital soundtrack fusing natural sounds with a haunting world music score. (At one point composer Michael Stearns combines Japan's Kodo Drummers, a Scottish bagpipe ensemble and a Tibetan water music orchestra.) Baraka encourages the audience to think or be entranced, and depending on mood and circumstance it can enthral or bore. With its epic, trans-human scale, vast formal grandeur, depersonalised abstraction, startling juxtapositions and avowed ambition to be the ultimate non-verbal film, Fricke has created a visionary experience akin to 2001: A Space Odyssey.

On the DVD: Baraka is accurately transferred at the original 70mm theatrical ratio of 2.2:1, not as the packaging says as 2.35:1. The picture quality is superlative, with virtually no flaws and razor-sharp images. The Dolby Digital 5.1 sound is equally outstanding. The extras are presented at 4:3 with letterboxed clips, and being video based offer lower image quality. These special features play for approximately 25 minutes and, apart from the original theatrical trailer, are divided into three sections containing significant overlaps between the material. The "making of" documentary and the collection of to-camera comments from members of the production team are both interesting, but the behind the scenes location filming footage adds little substance. --Gary S Dalkin

Customer reviews

review by: date: 2008-04-07 rating:

Jumble Of Images
You will either love this film or hate it. Although often compared to Koyaanisqatsi, there is a difference: that other film has a theme, that of the inorganic and organic world subject to human depredation and ever-increasing pressure. I liked THAT film very much. THIS film has no real theme. The word "baraka", often translated as "blessing", can also mean "spiritual structure", "spiritual force/strength" etc. It has been applied to both Gandhi and Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. The film appears to be trying to show the world in 90 minutes, an impossibility which has led to this self-regarding mish-mash of scarcely-connected images.

The images in the film include mountains, volcanoes, clouds, temples, Far Eastern factories etc. There is, inevitably (?) a reference to Jewish suffering (but no-one else's: not so many Russians, Germans etc became movers and shakers in the American film industry, I suppose)) during WW2, when is shown a couple of times, the exterior and interior of a labour or concentration camp in Poland (there are no subtitles but the locations are vaguely credited at the end); the brick-built accomodation blocks looking oddly like American social housing which I remember visiting some years ago in New Jersey. There are some stunning filmic images of Mosques and also some of the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem and what looks like a Greek Orthodox Church. It is noticeable that there are few European and Christian images of note in the film. The great mosques are shown, Jerusalem is shown, but not the great cathedrals of Europe. In reverse, there would be a film showing Chartres, Notre Dame de Paris, the great cathedrals of Russia, in short the great edifices of Christendom, but only poor little mosques or synagogues in dusty little towns. There is a heavy imbalance in favour of the non-European.

The problem is that the images tell no story, they are just there. This is arty-fartedness taken to an extreme: conceptually (though certainly not technically!) I could have made a film like this when I was 14 years old; most young persons of even average intelligence and creativity could. The idea seems to be that the whole will be greater than its parts. Unfortunately, the opposite is the case: this film is less than the sum of its components. A better film might have split itself into perhaps 4 or 5 parts, showing, perhaps Spiritual Life, Architecture (in all its forms), the other Great Works of Man, the Natural World, Animals, Plants, Works of Art etc...as it is the concept is flawed, it just does not work. At one point, the distressing treatment of day old chicks as they become battery chickens is shown, mixed with a speeded-up view of traffic, to show (?) the similarity between our lives and those of the chickens as they (and we?) head to our destiny? Very 1st year film school, surely? In fact, the once-novel, now hackneyed use of speeded-up film of clouds, cars, people, is overdone, to say the least. And so much of it says nothing: a Tokyo crowd speeded-up, mixed with a group of three Japanese schoolgirls just standing around. "Hey man, Far Out!" (Not!).

In the end, the world (and Art, whether filmic or other) requires Truth and Will as well as Beauty: these are the Three Pillars. This film contains only what is or passes for the beautiful or visually striking. That is why, in the end, this film is meaningless and, indeed, pointless.

review by: Guitar bass and drums - what's not to like ? date: 2008-01-17 rating:

If you liked that try this . . .
. . . said the shop assistant to me when I bought Koyaanisqatsi.
I had never heard of the film but was so pleased that I took his recommendation. This is visually stunning and musically fulfilling.
The good news is that a sequel- "Samsara"- is supposed to be out in 2008

review by: date: 2007-12-21 rating:

Baraka (1992)
The cinematography in this film is amazing. The world that is captured in the beginning shows calm and inner peace and beauty of wild life and nature .As the film progresses we how mankind has over populated and polluted the planet.

Devastating images of trees being cut down and car wrecks, bombs, war memorials show what we have done to this natural habitat.

I love this film, the sound track is amazing. The shots are fast moving and easy to watch. It is very captivating.

For all lovers of experimental film, this is a must see.

review by: date: 2007-11-23 rating:

A spectacular cinematographic feast
This is a very powerful film, which is a visual feast. It portrays without any words both the creative principle as well as the destructive principle of the human spirit. A voyage that in pictures and accompanying music shows a multitudes of cultures, landscapes, religious practices and beliefs that has a profound impact on the viewer. It is both celebratory and sobering at the same time.

Highly recommended and especially on a big screen if possible to get the most from the stunning visuals!

review by: date: 2006-11-17 rating:

This Second Sight release is a disappointment
I had wanted this film for a number of years, after seeing it on TV and being blown away by it. The trouble was, after so many years I couldn't remember it's title, so couldn't search for it. Imagine my excitement one day, recently, when the name of the film just popped into my head. I searched immediately here for it and was overjoyed to find it available on DVD.

I almost salivated with anticipation, imagining how glorious it would look, this crisp, immaculate Digital version. Many DVD's nowadays are so very cheap, but for this film I didn't mind paying the more expensive price. I knew, just knew it was going to be worth it.

So, in the post it arrived, and like many of us who buy a new, much wanted DVD, I opened the box, ready to fawn over the sealed case and cover. Oh, but wait, just hold that joy. There's just something a little cheap looking about the cover. It just doesn't look quite right, quite clear enough. I turn the case over to read, and it's immediately apparent to me that it IS cheap. In fact, so cheap it looks, I could do a better job myself on my PC. I kind of get the impression that they [the publisher] lost the original artwork and had to quickly knock something up from a magazine scan. Even the text is blurred in a 'this is a 50p colour photocopy' way.

"Oh well." I say to myself. "At least I have the film on glorious DVD, and it'll still be great." Not so.

This film, as many know, is a masterpiece. It is a glory for the eyes to behold. What a grave tragedy to find that this DVD release from Second Sight has nice, big, black spots popping up in the upper right corner of the screen throughout the film. Not only do they serve as a distraction to the perfection of this film, they are also an insult to my wallet.

This whole release just looks like a cheap pirate copy bought at a bootfair for a couple of quid. Were it indeed a crisp digital version, this film would get five stars from me, no question about it. But it isn't, and really falls short of expectations. I can only give it three.

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