Samsara (PG) 102 mins **
As
cinematographer, Ron Fricke provided the astonishing widescreen imagery for
1982’s Koyaanisqatsi, an eco-doc
beloved of college stoners. Now a director, Fricke slides similar footage along
the Generation Game conveyor belt for
this illustrated lecture, inspired by the Buddhist wheel of life. Ooh, Samsara coos, there’s a temple. Some
lovely nature, there. There’s another temple. There’s some people, scrabbling
like ants. And there’s a cuddly toy, left behind in the ruins of a village
where some fool put their recycling bin out on the wrong day.
It’s a
field day for gawpers: hard not to be struck by the painstaking craft of monks
creating vibrant tableaux from grains of sand, or the performance artist who
transforms himself into a living corpse with clay. Increasingly, though, the
tone grows hectoring and resistible. Fricke shows us the world’s most
spectacular holiday snaps as a prelude to finger-wagging: “See, pesky Westerners –
you’ve made this tiny Asian woman cry. Do you feel good, conformist parasites?
Well, do you?” You
may need to be stoned to get through it.
Samsara is on selected release.
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