Samsara

Overview

It is very easy, tempting even, to hoist up Samsara as a repeat reminder of how fevered we've grown in our lust for quick-cut edits, elevator-pitch plots and uncomplicated relationships. This latest film by director Ron Fricke and producer Mark Magidson (previously partnered in 1992's Baraka) is a non-verbal meditation on our planet and the billions who share it with us, and while only 99 minutes long, Samsara stares you in the eye for longer than most find comfortable.

Casually moonlighting as the name of an exotic scent or clothing range, samsara is Sanskrit for "the ever-turning wheel of life", and it is this motif that led Fricke and Magidson through a five-year shoot in twenty-five countries on five continents. Samsara is the wheel of life, death and rebirth, but it is also the grinding wheels of commercial labour, of fickle trends, and of the literal vehicles that the production crew commandeered in their often gruelling efforts to obtain 70mm footage for a few seconds of screen time.

This herculean dedication to cinematography has certainly returned great wonders. Samsara flows from one luscious image to the next, carried by intuitive editing rather than plot, and is supported by an original score from Michael Stearns, Lisa Gerrard and Marcello De Francisci that perpetually slips away from defining the meaning of a scene (while almost always evoking a whiff of patchouli and chai).

One of the driving concepts of Samsara are the portraits. These are sustained takes of people staring at the camera, their charged gazes a tribute to the eternal expression found on Tutankhamun's sarcophagus. A simple theme, but one that perfectly captures the sense that we are all occupants of this "mudball spinning in space", as Fricke terms it, no matter how varied our style, home or eye colour. It is interesting to note that these are the obvious moments of stillness — the fluttering lives — while the longer-living landscapes and architecture we inhabit are shown in dynamic time-lapses, as if it is the mudball that is sloughing away faster than our flesh.

Perhaps here there is a point of concern about the motivations behind Samsara. Fricke and Magidson are keen for the film to be a guided meditation, "not about right or wrong...[but] about how it is now". Mostly the images and sequences allow viewers to reflect and ruminate on their own thoughts; however, there are certain footage choices throughout Samsara that it is naive to declare free of political weight.

A significant section of the film plays witness to the immense production lines, for instance, rendering machines, humans and livestock into commodities at a rate and volume that is staggering to witness. While Fricke and Magidson may not have nailed a manifesto to the projector, there is no denying how charged this footage is in light of our daily dialogues on scarcity and peak economics.

Whether or not there is a polemic actually behind its majesty, Samsara is a film that provides a great counterpoint to the usual Boxing Day fare at cinemas. For those who are overfed on the sugar and fat of blockbusters, prepare to cleanse your mind and heart with another kind of richness.