Baraka

IMDb Link

In a word: Wow.

After watching it, I told a friend: 'I've just watched Baraka. I now hate humans even more.' To which he replied: 'It's even worse now than when they shot it.'
It sure is.

Incredible images that you have to see on a big screen or at least in high definition. Very, very high def. The quality of the images and of the sound is primordial, since that's what this is all about.

So, yes it has beautiful images, but also disturbing ones, and it's a wonderful film, an obvious labor of love. I sometimes smiled and, yes, I'm not ashamed to admit it, I sometimes shed tears at the stupidity of humanity.

Because, yes: it makes you think about nature and the nature of humans. We're on this planet and we're supposedly superior beings. We demolish in a split second what took thousands of years to be.
What we call animals just chill. Meanwhile we rush around and live in filth and we keep on reproducing.
What's a savage? A person who lives in small tribes, more or less happily, or the so-called civilized people,
rushing around like mindless drones, living off trash, creating trash, exploiting one another as well as other species for our instant gratification? Our nicotine buzz, our sex drive, our desire to be 'civilized,' ignoring what these cost to the people who work ceaselessly to provide us with said-gratifications.

Seeing this film makes you think that we, as humans, do not deserve this planet and we do not deserve life because it was given to us and we're squandering it away. In short, no surprise there: we're morons. We build, we build and then we build some more and we kill and we exploit and we don't realize that we're being exploited by our own greed. And we've been doing it since for ever.
At the risk of repeating myself: truly, we are fucked. And watching this film 20 years after it was shot reinforces this.

We live in slums and filth and we keep on mulitplying and we keep on asking for more. We pray, we kill, we dance. Sometimes we fuck. That's what we are. So, please: let's not say we are animals. That is just unfair to the animals. Let's say that the animals are lucky not to be humans.

Yes, we are capable of building or creating works of great beauty, but we always end up destroying them.
Or nature claims them back. So what's the point of it all?

By the way, and this is an important point: Because I am a misanthrope doesn't mean that the director is.
Quite the contrary, I do believe the director is saying that yes: we are sometimes complete assholes and we turn to shit whatever we touch. But... But we are also capable of beauty and understanding. And this point is exemplified by this film. So what I gleaned from this film might not have been the director's main point. But I suspect it might be.

My only small criticism, which is going to make me sound like the kind of people I hate, but oh well... When religions are first shown, we are shown Judaism first. When atrocities are first shown, we are shown Auschwitz first. This feels a bit too subjective. But, okay, whatever. In the end they're showing that no matter what your faith is, it's pretty much the same as all the other ones. You chant, you pray. You can pray all you want, we're all doomed anyway.

So, most religions are the same, they're all silly and pointless. And when we see a religious ritual we're not familiar with, we either laugh and point, shaking our head and calling the people silly. Or we recoil in horror and call them barbarians. Meanwhile we forget the one thing all religions claim to preach: tolerance.

The greatest day in the history of the universe will be when we, as a species, will be wiped out, as is bound to happen because frankly: we're fucking it all up. Good riddance. The world will go on. Let's hope the Mayans were right. Although since they were humans and thus assholes, they probably weren't.

Well, fuck.

Coming up after these messages: the genocide of the humans by the humans continues! But first, a message from our sponsors to make sure you keep on buying shit.

PS: Completely unrealted and attempting to end this on a lighter note: How's that for a name: Baraka O'Bama. Notice the Irish touch.