April Film Club

Hey there folks, hope everybody had a great weekend!  A special thanks to everyone who was able to make it to our showing of The Quiet Man, we had about 22 people, let's keep up those numbers!
Now, on to business.  Last year, in April, we watched the film Baraka (click link for trailer), a non-narrative, cinematic adventure that explores nature, mankind and the essence of life, using only moving images and music.  That film came out in 1992.  10 years later (2012), Fricke directed something of a spiritual sequel to Baraka, entitled Samsara.  This will be our film club film for the month of April, which will meet Thursday the 18th.

Samsara is directed by Ron Fricke and produced by Mark Magidson.  The pair had collaborated on Baraka and reunited in 2006 to plan Samsara.  They researched locations that would fit the conceptual imagery of samsara, to them meaning "birth, death and rebirth, or impermanence."  They gathered research from people's works and photo books as well as the Internet and YouTube, resources not available at the time of planning Baraka.  They considered using digital cameras but decided to film in 70 mm instead, considering its quality superior.  Filming lasted for more than four years and took place in 25 countries across five continents.  Fricke and Magidson emphasized avoiding a particular political view in assembling the film.  Frick said, "We just try to keep it in the middle and then we form little blocks of content and then we set them aside until we had enough.  We did all of this without music or sound effects.  We just let the image guide the flow and then we started stringing the blocks together."

Expanding on the themes explored in Baraka (1992) and Chronos (1985), Samsara explores the wonders of our world from the mundane to the miraculous, looking into the unfathomable reaches of man's spirituality and the human experience.  Neither a traditional documentary nor a travelogue, Samsara takes the form of a non-verbal, guided meditation.

Samsara is one of the most moving, most visually breathtaking films you will every experience.  You will not want to miss this film, hope to see you there! (If you are ever unable to make it to one of our showings, all the films shown are available for rental at the library!)

Here's the trailer:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qp967YAAdNk