If you’ve ever wanted to feel small, overwhelmed, and awestruck by humanity and nature in the same breath, this one delivers.
Trailer for “Baraka”
You Can’t Make This Sh!t Up
- A random, unplanned shot ended up being one of the most talked about. A lone Buddhist monk walking calmly through the Tokyo chaos, chanting through horns and traffic without flinching or ever looking at the camera.
More Highlights from the Doc
- The film juxtaposes the sacred and the industrial—showing Islamic prayers in Mecca, chanting monks in Bhutan, and then snapping into cities filled with machines, pollution, and masses of factory workers.
- You get volcanoes erupting, flocks of birds swirling like tornados, abandoned war zones, bustling cities, and serene mountaintops—all cut together like poetry with music from around the globe.
- It’s one of the only films to use Todd-AO 70mm format outside of Hollywood—making it jaw-droppingly crisp. Every wrinkle in a face, every drop of ritual oil, every pile of bones… it’s all there in full detail.
Watch “Baraka”
You can watch “Baraka” on Prime Video.
Ratings:
- My Rating: 92/100
- IMDB Rating: 8.5/10
- Rotten Tomatoes Ratings: 96/100 (Users); 85/100 (Critics)
Director’s Note: “Baraka” was directed by Ron Fricke. This time, Fricke wanted complete control and built his own camera system to create images that felt hyper-real. He later made a follow-up film called “Samsara” in 2011, which took a similar approach.
Release Date: September 1992 (Theatrical)
My Review of “Baraka”
The Setup
There’s no story. No narrator. No subtitles. Just the planet—its rituals, religions, disasters, and progress—shot in wordless sequences. The film goes from a monastery to a slum to a rainforest to Auschwitz without blinking. The effect is both meditative and overwhelming.
This is a film you feel more than you analyze. It doesn’t explain—it just observes. And somehow, that makes the emotional impact much greater.
Lesser-Known Details from the Doc
- A small crew spent 14 months traveling to 152 locations in 24 countries. They all had custom-built 65mm cameras that had to be disassembled and reassembled constantly across jungles, deserts, and war zones.
- The crew had to carry 70mm camera rigs on foot up to mountaintop temples and down into jungle rivers—the film’s most serene shots were the hardest to shoot.
- In one sweeping segment, you go from a Japanese cosmetics factory’s robotic perfection straight to Auschwitz, Tuol Sleng, and fields of stacked human skulls—without a word spoken.
- Post-production took almost as long as shooting. Every frame had to be scanned, color corrected, and scored manually—no digital shortcuts back then.
- The shot of the whirling dervish dance in Turkey required special access and timing—they had one chance to capture the ceremony each year.
- The sound design blends field audio with custom music recorded for the film—some of it with rare instruments native to just one region or tribe.
Wrap Up:
If you’ve ever wanted to see war, worship, grief, and joy in one movie, “Baraka” is it.
Thanks for reading!
Heather Fenty, Guest Writer, Daily Doc