Day 55/58 - Samsara (2012)

Samsara means "continuous flow," the cycle of birth, life, and death that makes up our existence. The film consists of live images no matter what the subject. 

As a film, it is more difficult to write about than experience. Filled with stunning images of nature and the human condition, it becomes a visual zen for the eyes. Dealing with 99 minutes of non-narrative 70 mm images from some 25 countries of the world, it reminds me a lot of the 1954 This is Cinerama, which had a roller coaster ride sequence I still remember after all these years.

Samsara has several balloon or airplane images. Another favored technique are fast motion time-lapse pictures showing urban lights, people getting on and off methods of transportation, and nature images of stars and the moon. 

When the film ended, many things remain in my mind: 

• Countless portraits of people of the world confronting the camera face-on, from the peaceful sleeping silver toned bog man, African men and women, a tattooed father and child, babies being baptized... 
• Many portraits of the artifical--from the mask of Tutankhamon, to heads for sex dolls, animate robots which stare back at us almost defying us to view them as fake, folk dancers from many countries...
• Deserted houses and interiors that nature is taking over...
• Tibetan monks painstakingly creating a sand mandala and later destroying it.
• Paintings and crystal chandeliers in an interior at Versailles.
• Chickens in a circular holding pit trying to avoid being sucked into rotating arms and then packed in crates and eventually hanging as meat on conveyer belts...
• Enormous sows trapped in a metal arms suckling their young which will then be harvested...
• Cows on a moving platform being milked by machines...
• A large carp-shaped child coffin and a gun-shaped adult coffin...
• Mountains and mountains of garbage and tons of discarded technology that are being culled by scavengers for usable items...

For me the only jarring sequence is a performance artist who covers his face with clay, mud, paper and paint.

The film is a powerful reminder of the diversity of our existence.

Samsara (2011) ****