Director Ron Fricke follows up 1992’s visually stunning Baraka with this five-year- and 25-country-spanning cinematic journey that gets its name from a Sanskrit term for the cycle of birth, death and rebirth. In 102 minutes, the ambitious filmmaker attempts an all-encompassing look at humankind in the 21st century through a 70mm mélange of sweeping, awe-inspiring visuals that successfully represent both the beauty of life and the society-murdering effects of materialism (hopeless children search for clothing in a trash heap), capitalism (Asian businessmen shuffle between tiny cubicles and cramped subways) and industrialization (chickens are treated like garbage at a food-processing plant).
Where Samsara is a bit lacking, however, is in a sense of hope for humanity’s wayward fate — shots of Hurricane Katrina’s aftermath and a closing view of an endless, empty desert seem to imply we’ve gone too far. But, then again, maybe that’s the point.
