samsara

Moira+I went to the Watershed yesterday afternoon to see Ron Fricke’s film “Samsara” (it means “birth, death and rebirth” or “impermanence” according to producer Mark Magidson).

IT WAS ASTONISHING!
It took some five years to make and was filmed in more than twenty countries, using 70mm film – with an impressive musical background and no dialogue. The Watershed’s blurb talked about it being “an unparalleled sensory experience”… but this proved to be something of an understatement and didn’t really prepare me for the unrelenting visual feast.  
Trying to describe the film simply won’t do justice to it… it’s a dazzling stream of colourFUL images (and frequently uses time-lapse sequences); it’s a mixture of stunning scenes of natural beauty alongside, for example, mesmerising lines of uniformed factory workers and harrowing squalor (and much more); it’s bizarre, funny, poignant and frequently takes your breath away… and provides, as the Watershed’s blurb describes it, “a wordless meditation of the wonders of our world, from the mundane to the miraculous”.
YOU SIMPLY MUST SEE IT!
PS: There are so many stunning things to look out for in the 99 minute film, but you’ve simply GOT to see/experience: a) the wonderful, exuberant, orange-clad dancing male prisoners(!), b) the amazing aerial views of the Hajj, the Mecca pilgrimage that make it look like digital manipulation by the team that brought us “The Lord of the Rings”(!) and c) the tabletop mosaic meticulously crafted by monks from coloured sand… actually, there SO many examples that I could easily have listed 50 of them (if only I could remember them all!).