Samsara (I) (2011)

Filmed over nearly five years in twenty-five countries on five continents, and shot on seventy-millimetre film, Samsara transports us to the varied worlds of sacred grounds, disaster zones, industrial complexes, and natural wonders.

Director:

Ron Fricke

Writers:

Ron Fricke (concept and treatment written by), Mark Magidson (concept and treatment written by)

Stars:

Balinese Tari Legong Dancers, Ni Made Megahadi Pratiwi, Puti Sri Candra Dewi

1 win & 2 nominations.

Cast

Credited cast:
Balinese Tari Legong Dancers	...	Dancers: Indonesia
Ni Made Megahadi Pratiwi	...	Dancer: Valinese Tari Legong Dancers, Indonesia
Puti Sri Candra Dewi	...	Dancer: Valinese Tari Legong Dancers, Indonesia
Putu Dinda Pratika	...	Dancer: Valinese Tari Legong Dancers, Indonesia
Marcos Luna	...	Tattoo Daddy: USA
Hiroshi Ishiguro	...	Professor and Robot Clone: Japan (as Prof. Hiroshi Ishiguro)
Olivier De Sagazan	...	Mat At Desk: France
Ladyboys of Cascade Bar	...	Dancers: Thailand
Kikumaru	...	Geisha: Japan
Crisanto Neire	...	Lead Singer: Cebu Provincial Detenton Center, Philippines
Robert Henline	...	U>S> Army Veteran: USA (as Staff Sergeant Robert Henline)
Rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Tai Lihua	...	Lead Dancer: 1000 Habds Goddess Dance, China (as Iai Lihua)

Storyline

Filmed over nearly five years in twenty-five countries on five continents, and shot on seventy-millimetre film, Samsara transports us to the varied worlds of sacred grounds, disaster zones, industrial complexes, and natural wonders.

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Plot Keywords:

crowd | prison dance | delicate arch | themed casket | facial tattoo | 

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Genres:

Documentary

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Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated PG-13 for some disturbing and sexual images

Details

Official Sites:

Official Facebook Official site

Country:

USA

Release Date:

23 August 2012 (Germany)

Also Known As:

Samsara - A lét örök körforgása

Filming Locations:

Bagan, Burma

Box Office

Budget:

$4,000,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend:

$105,000 (USA) (31 August 2012)

Gross:

$2,601,847 (USA) (21 December 2012)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Bali Film Center, Bang Singapore, Bullet Productions

Technical Specs

Runtime:

102 min

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital (8 channels) Datasat

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Samsara (a Sanskrit word literally meaning "continuous flow") is the repeating cycle of birth, life, death and rebirth (reincarnation) within Hinduism, Buddhism, Bön, Jainism and Yoga. In Sikhism this concept is slightly different and looks at our actions in the present and consequences in the present.

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Connections

Follows Baraka (1992)

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Soundtracks

"Kothbiro"
Performed by Ayub Ogada
Written by Ayub Ogada and Mbarak Achieng
Published by Womad Music, Ltd
(Admin by EMI-Virgin Songs, Inc.) (BMI)
Courtesy of Real World Records

User Reviews

It took years to perfect and an instant to ruin

Samsara is a depressingly accurate account of shallow human materialism, the widespread ungratefulness of our culture, and the incredible arrogance we continue to proudly possess. It features images too powerful to be computer generated and humanity too sincere to be fiction. Even though not a word is spoken, the film's images pack well over a thousand words, making Samsara, hypothetically, the longest work of poetry ever written.

The film chronicles the living conditions, the activities, and the day-to-day routines of many different people across twenty-five different countries. We never do get a true answer where we are at, which works as a method by the filmmakers, I assume, to prevent assumptions and judgments on the places and the people. We are shown many things in these evocative, unforgettable one-hundred minutes, and more depth and enigma than many will experience in their lifetime.

Shots are presented in crystal clear 70mm (if you're lucky enough to find a theater with the proper projector, but regular theater projectors should work efficiently enough), and we get a beautiful look at life in the slums, life in mansions placed delicately on the coastlines, and living conditions in countries such as Ethiopia and the United States. We see early religious rituals carried out, such as Tibetan monks engaged in their prayers or youthful baptisms, as well as contrasting lifestyles that involve dance mobs, suffering, and habitat destruction.

Director Ron Ficke's imagery and global cinematography is gripping and astounding, with long shots centered on characters, groups of people, or sometimes, aerial shots that feature a wide coverage of the surrounding land. My favorites are easily the time lapse sequences, sped up to breakneck speeds, sometimes showing haunting images of uncertainty or simply the fast paced nature of our world.

There are two sequences in particular that are the most haunting, and describing them will be no easy task. One involves a man sitting behind a desk, who begins to smear modeling clay on his face, before grabbing a tiny paint brush and stroking black and red paint all over himself as well. He begins to vigorously do both things at once, ripping clay off his face only to smear it back on, throw dust in his eyes, stick pencils in his face, etc. The long-shot becomes faster and faster, while jolting music plays in the background. The scene alone is more horrifying and surreal than anything I've seen in 2012, with the exception of Battle Royale.

The other lasts about five or six minutes, involving a barn full of chickens helplessly being sucked into a large, ominous tractor that will kill them and prepare them for tomorrow's meal. From birth to death, they live their entire life in fear and darkness, barely being able to move due to their heavy breasts and increasing plumpness. We too get a look at pot belly pigs, also too heavy to move, as they lay still and allow their piglets to drink milk from their nipples. We then see those same baby pigs hanging from a long line in the air at a condensed factory, being prepared into the bacon you will eat tomorrow for breakfast.

These images are nonetheless painful, but it all resorts back to what I called Samsara in the first paragraph - depressingly accurate, more haunting than fiction, and silently nudging us when we're left agape, saying, "hey, we're to thank for this." And we are. One of the final shots involves a beautiful mural of tiny colored specs being swept away in seconds by men brushing the table it is on. We are stunned that such a beautiful thing would be carelessly wiped away, but it all returns back to the idea that we were too given a beautiful slice of life and the world and we took it for granted and nearly destroyed it. We weren't able to take a second look.

Fricke paints Samsara, which is Sanskrit for "the ever turning wheel of life," as a film that sometimes can laud human activity and then turn around and condemn it. It is predominately a loose picture, that wants you to search for meaning in its images, but unlike Jean-Luc Godard's Film Socialisme, a horrible exercise in a similar field, we can see the images represent something and there's enough ambiguity that we are able to extract many different messages from the source material and are able to provide sufficient evidence to back up our claims. To put it simply, this is one of the best, most intellectually stimulating films of the last ten years.

Directed by: Ron Fricke.