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100With a title taken from an American Indian word for "life out of balance," Godfrey Reggio's wordless documentary lured dreamers into the sacred cave of cinema, where they ingested the serial music of Philip Glass and the time-lapse imagery of cinematographer Ron Fricke.
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100It is the kind of experience you simply sink into.
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100Simply put, Samsara tells the story of our world, but onscreen, it is so much more than that.
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83The word 'samsara' means 'continuous flow of life' in Tibetan, and Fricke and company surely experienced that sensation in making the film, which took them to 25 countries in a span of five years.
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Sep 1, 201280It may be just more of the same from Fricke, but with his unique process, another incredible-looking lap around the world is more than welcome.
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80It demands to be experienced on its own terms or not at all, which creates a significant level of resistance in the contemporary media marketplace – but may also be a source of counterintuitive appeal.
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80A spool of arresting, beautifully composed shots without narration or dialogue, Samsara is an invitation to watch closely and to suspend interpretation (another notion Sontag might have approved).
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Aug 21, 201280A darker and more ambitious meditation on impermanence, Samsara relies on blunt force and unforgettable imagery, overcoming the hazy logic of Fricke's editing to earn your awe.
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75Achingly beautiful and visually transfixing, Samsara offers a transporting vacation from the usual multiplex fare. It's a movie to get lost in.
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75Samsara is gorgeous. And sometimes, depending on expectations, looks are enough.
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75What does it all mean? I'm not convinced that Fricke's movies are much more than exalted travelogues, but you certainly feel as if you've been somewhere after you've seen one of them.
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Aug 21, 201275Ron Fricke's film is a brightly hued bauble, fit for rapturous contemplation.
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Aug 23, 201263The drawbacks to this often rhapsodically beautiful film lie not in the journey itself, but in the preachy detours taken along the way.
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Aug 27, 201260A semi-sequel to the acclaimed "Baraka," Fricke delivers another stunning spectacle in 70mm, interspersed with some tiresome sermonising.
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60Oddly, there isn't as much originality as you'd expect from a global search for meaning.
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Aug 21, 201260Jaw-dropping in colour and splendour, but if the constant awe gets a bit tiring, at its best you can genuinely feel some great wheel turning.
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60The images wash over you - lush, gorgeous, impeccably framed - just as they did in Ron Fricke's wordless meditation "Baraka" (1992).
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50The film is implicitly advocating a New Age or holistic perspective, with a dollop of Eastern religion added for good measure. (The title is Sanskrit meaning "wheel of life.")
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50It's a purely sensory journey until the pictures start making editorial comments, in slaughterhouses and garbage dumps.
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50Samsara is as frustrating as it is beautiful, which is saying a lot because this is a film laced with exquisite images.
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Aug 21, 201250The film's imagery is epic and trance-inducing. It's the "guided" part where Samsara stumbles.
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Sep 13, 201240The film winds up being a collection of striking visuals without any emotional heft.
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40It seems to me that since "Koyaanisqatsi" in 1982, for which Fricke served as the director of photography, every other film of this sort has been repetition.
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38The result is like an issue of National Geographic gone mad.