Friday, May 2, 2008

cinematic culture vulture

Blast from the immediate past, current fave film of '92: BARAKA

This one:
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Not this one:
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Shot in 152 locations in 42 different countries, "Baraka" attempts to search for a universal cultural perspective on spirituality, war, industry and community. This experimental film contains no dialogue, leaving it up to the instrumental soundtrack (provided by Andean drummers and ambient musicians "Dead can Dance), time lapse photography and long winded yet stunning landscape shots to evoke emotion and cite parallels between cultures. Ron Fricke, the director and cinematographer of "Baraka", is also linked to Godfrey Reggio's Qatsi trilogy, a set of films described as "visual tone poems" featuring a minimalist score by Philip Glass (of course).


"Balinese Monkey Chant"



Continue to "Part 6 of 10" if you'd like to see the meet-your-meat conclusion but go ahead and rent the film in order to finish it. "Baraka" was shot in Todd-AO format which is a ludicrously high-format, widescreen film that basically makes everything look like super-saturated iMAX hard candy.