Alissa Mandich Baraka

Alissa Mandich

Biology 1040 

Jose L. Jimenez

February 25, 2008 

Baraka 

The Baraka film is a beautiful montage of a collection of photography and background music that captures nature as well as human nature.  Even though there are no actors, actresses, plot or script it captures the beautiful scenery of landscapes around the world like: churches, waterfalls, ruins. and cultureal and religious ceremonies.  It explored various places in the world including the six major continents.  This powerful nonverbal film shows people in their natural habitat, and how the advancements of technology have altered am extreme and primitive way of life by completely changing their life and lands.  

This film explores six different continents and twenty-four countries.  In these different places there were numerous religions, each one of them with a noticeably different customs.  For example it showed Orthodox Jews praying at the Western Wall in Jerusalem.  IT was evitable how holy this land was to the Jews because they were very seriously dressed and composed there.  It also showed the Muslims pilgrimage to the city of Mecca.  It showed the customs of them praying with millions of other Muslims as they walked around Mecca.  Catholics were another major religion that appeared in the film.  It showed Catholics performing ceremonies in a very traditional fashion in a traditional church.  Even other less common religious groups that are rare in the United States were touched upon.  It hoed people with face paint and matching pants partaking in a ceremony that consisted of people sitting around and dancing as they listened to musical beats.  There were so many religions explored in the film and it was very interesting to see the many different life styles of the different groups of people.  

A major portion of this film showed destruction of nature.  There were many things being blown up, trees being cut down, things being produced in factories, people digging throw trash to find food, prostitutes on the streets, and homeless people sleeping on the streets.  This created a very different tone and mood to the film than the peaceful scenery of the rest of the film.  This portion of the of the film was more disturbing because after the showing of the beautiful and peaceful world we live in it showed the destruction and mess which we have created.  This was incredibly sad to see because even though I know things are like this are taking place in the world I seem to be very much sheltered from a lot of the major issues in the world.  

Overall I really enjoyed this movie.  It gave me a chance to look at the world in a different way.  Baraka really captures the beauty and greatness of the world and the people living in it.  It made me wonder about how much we are destorying the Earth by cutting down tress, and building factories, and blowing things up.  Even though the movie was alittle long it was really able to make an impact on how I view the world.