Whether it strikes you as a profound, perspective-shifting spiritual travelogue, or the cinematic equivalent of a forgettable New Age music loop, this follow-up to 1992’s Baraka by director Ron Fricke and producer Mark Magidson nails its intent as “guided meditation.” Zigzagging through 25 countries in ravishing Super Panavision 70, Samsara plumbs its titular conceit—the Buddhist/Hindu notion of cosmic cyclicity and earthly suffering—with a visual panache that short-circuits the need for narrative discipline (and dialogue. Like its predecessor, Samsara is entirely nonverbal). From corporeal subjects in an Ethiopian village and a São Paulo cathedral to inanimate relics on Turkey’s Mount Nemrut and in the devastated Ninth Ward of New Orleans, the film’s imagery is epic and trance-inducing. It’s the “guided” part where Samsara stumbles. Civilization’s hyper-mechanized Malthusian horror show is captured with inventive flare (a mass dance sequence in a Filipino prison is a stunning highlight), but it’s undercut by an underlying smugness and complementary mush-brained Eastern fetishism that toe right up to elitism. Clichéd wraparound sequences in a Ladakh mountain monastery are the tip-off, but a preoccupation with factory grunts, office drones, destitute trash-pickers, and fat, burger-slamming Yanks as exemplars of humanity’s failings—no high-salaried overachievers or bougies of any stripe appear among Samsara’s parade of the lost—outs Fricke and Magidson as high-minded aesthete snobs.
This is hip writing that gets it wrong. May I offer an alternate view, at http://samsarafilm.wordpress.com/, in which I take the position that this is (what's the opposite of mush-brained?) hard-headed Eastern polemicism that succeeds brilliantly. Mr. Holcomb, thank you for the spur in my saddle.
Find capsule reviews, showtimes & tickets for all films in town.
Join My Voice Nation for free stuff, film info & more!
Find everything you're looking for in your city
Find the best happy hour deals in your city
Get today's exclusive deals at savings of anywhere from 50-90%
Check out the hottest list of places and things to do around your city
