User Reviews

I came across the trailer for Samsara having never heard anything about it before, or the filmmakers involved, but the trailer alone made me want to check it out. I got to see it in IMAX and I'm glad I did as, as everyone else has said, visually it is stunning, so the bigger the screen you can see it on the better.

I have never seen Fricke's previous work such as Baraka so I had no idea what to truly expect when I sat down before it started. I see people have mentioned they got bored after 30 minutes due to the lack of dialog/narration and that overall it's too long but I couldn't disagree more. From the first scene to last, I was totally engrossed in the visual and audio experience. The juxtaposition of concepts and themes worked, I got to see places and activities I didn't know about in a way I have never seen before. The soundtrack is spot on, capturing and switching the moods perfectly. It moves you.

I see critics have said that the message of Samsara isn't clear but I don't think it needs a message. Seeing Samsara has enhanced my understanding, and appreciation for, the way our world is and works, and what really matters most to us. How many times can you go to the cinema and come out a more knowledgeable person?

Samsara is quite simply a work of art and, like all great art, you interpret it in your own individual way and it makes you think. Do yourself a favor and experience it.

Brilliant, but difficult to explain why. No plot, no acting (well, except for one scene, but I'll come to that). So, it's a documentary then? Yes, sort of, but there is no narration, nor captions, nor even tags to let you know what or where in the world you are looking at.

In essence, it's a visual documentary on the modern world. Initially it just seems like National Geographic without any commentary: beautiful scenes of temples, nature and places you might want to go as a tourist. However, 100 minutes of random places and things could be boring after a while. Just when you start to think that might well be the case, themes start to emerge: nature, buildings, opulence vs poverty, guns/military, livestock. Pretty much everyday things, and how they are connected.

It is basically a 100-minute stream-of-consciousness exercise, using amazing, totally natural visual imagery (ie no CGI). Enjoy it for where it takes your mind, or just for the images and the drama of everyday life.

Only negative note is the one scene that isn't candid: a performance artist. Very pretentious and pointless and prevents this movie from being perfect.

This film has tremendous power, not just from camera technique, but from the simple device of a human face steadily gazing at you. Time and time again humanity intrudes its collective face on you as life plays out across the Earth. Acceleration contrasts with contemplation; Earth rhythms overshadow human activity; no one seems to notice.

Samsara is beautiful, bizarre, and unforgettable. As the film progressed, my convictions as to what is 'for real' began to weaken. We may really be stuck in the same dream state. And always someone 'sees' back at you. Or is Samsara 'only a movie'?

This is not to say there is one correct way to experience or interpret Samara. Your reaction will reflect you only. At times uncomfortable, viewing Samsara is an experience worth having.

I just saw a screening of Samsara at the TIFF, at the brilliant TIFF Lightbox theatre.

Wow.

A film that took 5 years to make and co-ordinate. Shot in Panarama 70mm, across 26 countries, needing major government and regulatory clearances, having to wait for certain seasons or lunar phases to get the light to hit the way director Fricke wanted...carefully strung together with a massive 7.1 surround sound design and music score from Michael Stearns, Marcello de Francisci, and Lisa Gerrard (of Dead Can Dance).

The 70mm negative has been digitally scanned and oversampled at 8k resolution (much like the 'Baraka' Blu-ray); the TIFF Lightbox theatre installed a brand new Christie 4k projector (Christie Projection Systems rushed the projector before its release to the market specifically for this event) making it the first true 4k screening of it's kind.

From sweeping landscapes to time-lapse sequences of the night sky and from exclusive looks into the processing of food to the consumption and effects it has on the human body, Samsara is nothing short of astounding. Modern technology, production lines, and human robotics are juxtaposed against a backdrop of deserts, garbage mounds as far as the eye can see, and traffic congestion in modern centres. The time-lapse footage is simply transcendent. In fact, I caught myself questioning the reality of some of the landscape vistas and night skyline montages...they looked so hyper-real that I thought they must have come from a CG lab somewhere. Simply astonishing. The richness, depth and clarity of colour and image achieved within the processes utilized gives birth to the most beautiful visual meditation that I have ever witnessed.

As one film journalist noted, "That Samsara is instantly one of the most visually-stunning films in the history of cinema is reason enough to cherish it, but Fricke and co-editor Mark Magidson achieve truly profound juxtapositions, brimming with meaning and emotion. It sounds preposterous, but it's true: In 99 minutes, Samsara achieves something approaching a comprehensive portrait of the totality of human experience. If you're even remotely fond of being alive, Samsara is not to be missed."

If you ever come across the chance to see this film in a decent theatre, run, and let your eyeballs (and earholes) feast upon its brilliance.

Samsara is a depressingly accurate account of shallow human materialism, the widespread ungratefulness of our culture, and the incredible arrogance we continue to proudly possess. It features images too powerful to be computer generated and humanity too sincere to be fiction. Even though not a word is spoken, the film's images pack well over a thousand words, making Samsara, hypothetically, the longest work of poetry ever written.

The film chronicles the living conditions, the activities, and the day-to-day routines of many different people across twenty-five different countries. We never do get a true answer where we are at, which works as a method by the filmmakers, I assume, to prevent assumptions and judgments on the places and the people. We are shown many things in these evocative, unforgettable one-hundred minutes, and more depth and enigma than many will experience in their lifetime.

Shots are presented in crystal clear 70mm (if you're lucky enough to find a theater with the proper projector, but regular theater projectors should work efficiently enough), and we get a beautiful look at life in the slums, life in mansions placed delicately on the coastlines, and living conditions in countries such as Ethiopia and the United States. We see early religious rituals carried out, such as Tibetan monks engaged in their prayers or youthful baptisms, as well as contrasting lifestyles that involve dance mobs, suffering, and habitat destruction.

Director Ron Ficke's imagery and global cinematography is gripping and astounding, with long shots centered on characters, groups of people, or sometimes, aerial shots that feature a wide coverage of the surrounding land. My favorites are easily the time lapse sequences, sped up to breakneck speeds, sometimes showing haunting images of uncertainty or simply the fast paced nature of our world.

There are two sequences in particular that are the most haunting, and describing them will be no easy task. One involves a man sitting behind a desk, who begins to smear modeling clay on his face, before grabbing a tiny paint brush and stroking black and red paint all over himself as well. He begins to vigorously do both things at once, ripping clay off his face only to smear it back on, throw dust in his eyes, stick pencils in his face, etc. The long-shot becomes faster and faster, while jolting music plays in the background. The scene alone is more horrifying and surreal than anything I've seen in 2012, with the exception of Battle Royale.

The other lasts about five or six minutes, involving a barn full of chickens helplessly being sucked into a large, ominous tractor that will kill them and prepare them for tomorrow's meal. From birth to death, they live their entire life in fear and darkness, barely being able to move due to their heavy breasts and increasing plumpness. We too get a look at pot belly pigs, also too heavy to move, as they lay still and allow their piglets to drink milk from their nipples. We then see those same baby pigs hanging from a long line in the air at a condensed factory, being prepared into the bacon you will eat tomorrow for breakfast.

These images are nonetheless painful, but it all resorts back to what I called Samsara in the first paragraph - depressingly accurate, more haunting than fiction, and silently nudging us when we're left agape, saying, "hey, we're to thank for this." And we are. One of the final shots involves a beautiful mural of tiny colored specs being swept away in seconds by men brushing the table it is on. We are stunned that such a beautiful thing would be carelessly wiped away, but it all returns back to the idea that we were too given a beautiful slice of life and the world and we took it for granted and nearly destroyed it. We weren't able to take a second look.

Fricke paints Samsara, which is Sanskrit for "the ever turning wheel of life," as a film that sometimes can laud human activity and then turn around and condemn it. It is predominately a loose picture, that wants you to search for meaning in its images, but unlike Jean-Luc Godard's Film Socialisme, a horrible exercise in a similar field, we can see the images represent something and there's enough ambiguity that we are able to extract many different messages from the source material and are able to provide sufficient evidence to back up our claims. To put it simply, this is one of the best, most intellectually stimulating films of the last ten years.

Directed by: Ron Fricke.

My boyfriend and I went to see this at the Cinerama in Seattle. For those wanting to see this movie, I highly recommend seeing it in a theater, if possible. It's one that needs to be watched on a big screen with a great sound system to add to the amazing visual and auditory impact. It was also thought provoking and gave us plenty to think about and discuss afterward.

Visually, this movie is one of the best I've ever seen. The time lapse photography as well as the vivid colors and detail... I don't even know how to describe it, as it was like nothing I've ever seen before.

This film screams loudly, despite the fact that not a single word is spoken. It's a journey around the world, showing the immense beauty and the grotesque horrors of humanity, interspersed with stunning natural landscapes and the fallout of natural disaster. Nothing is held back from us and, rather than make a specific point, each viewer is able to take from the film what speaks to them. The filmmakers were able to show some incredible juxtapositions and contradictions, calling into question much of what we take for granted and don't bother to contemplate. On more than one occasion, I was moved to tears, either by the sheer beauty of the scene or out of pure disgust.

The score was so perfectly matched to the scenery that, in some places, it was impossible to believe that the music was not present when the scenes were filmed.

This is definitely a must see and I sincerely hope that we'll be treated to another installment from the filmmaker.

I have found reviewing this film in detail to be futile. Instead, I will offer my own thoughts.

Whereas 1992's "Baraka" contemplates on humanity in a dream/god-like manner, Ron Fricke's "Samsara" is more intense and solemn in its tone. From the birth of civilization, mankind has used its gift for intelligence for nothing but progress, and now, today, we have either reached or gone over the tipping point. There is no where but down this time. Humans work mechanically in a clockwork fashion, consume everything in their path, and leave the excesses behind for others to scavenge. Eventually, all will collapse, leaving nothing behind and returning the state of civilization back to ground zero. And the wheel turns on. Is this what "Samsara", Frick and co-editor Mark Magidson is trying to say? Or did you experience a completely different interpretation? It is up to you to decide.

I will not ponder upon the technical details. The cinematography and editing is flawless; the music and music arrangement - simply mesmerizing. A work of art, like life itself, on this planet, in our cities and homes, in the desolate plains and mountains; they are shown in all its beauty, splendour and spectacle. Our planet is truly beautiful.

I will end my review with this note - you owe no one but yourself to see this film. Every man, woman and child should see this - regardless of their personal preference of culture and entertainment. This film is a message to all of us. A warning.

Overall rating: 100%

Baraka was a film that left me dazzled and mesmerized. Walking into Samsara, I was nervous that my expectations were simply too high, and that the film would too closely mimic its sibling.

I can confidently say that by the end of Samsara, I once again experienced the flick of a light switch in my mind. Everything I am was completely put into perspective. As a result, I can promise that Samsara will leave you both awestruck and completely terrified.

Samsara struck a very personal chord with me. Much of what is shown exists because of people like me. The film is an unfiltered walk through the things that I try my best to ignore in daily life. I'm not sure how to reconcile the imagery of Samsara with how I live my life. I'm also not sure that I want to. It would mean giving up the vast majority of my creature comforts, even though I know those comforts come at the expense of other people, animals and the planet.

The fact the film allows me to think about these things, in a way that I normally wouldn't, means that it worked. 4/4.

S A M S A R A (my little review)

Ron Fricke, creator of the films Chaos and Baraka creates a tour de sympathy with his third, evocative, deeply stirring, film Samsara, a movie that points directly at personal responsibility, empowerment, and the price of thoughtless consumption, attachment, creation of ideologies to supplant a close relationship with life, but also a sort of raging against the dying of the light... and those who pay the price in society... the spirit of man, the animals we share this planet with, women, children and nature itself...

First off I would recommend this movie, this beautiful movie shot in 70mm full of color and feeling, that traverses the globe, and one's own heart. The film makes a Tibetan sand mandala of us all, blossoms a petal of truth within, then wipes away the dross...

I believe there is not only a definite thread to follow, but it's rather like seeing a natural singularity becoming split into the myriad activities of all humanity, the occurring entanglements, and then how it comes back together into the singularity within the heart, the seat of the soul. We always have a choice to diverge or to return to the inlet of our spiritual sea, the remembrance of our natural state as humanity... I believe the movie gets this across in such a beautiful and simple way that it's life changing. I don't think everyone will get it in the moment, I believe a seed will be planted in some, watered in others, and blossom in others, but for each where they stand, the movie will meet you where you are if you are open to its message.

Go see this movie.

For the first 10 minutes I thought it was a mistake to have bought the ticket.

It was first time for me to see a documentary film without any commentary.

The images were so beautiful and interesting, but I expected that I would get bored in a few minutes.

And in fact, I did.

but after a while, somehow I gradually got absorbed in the movie again.

Keeping watching gorgeous images leads me to a kind of meditation.

and in the end, I ended up getting impressed.

You can experience something different from ordinary documentary.

It is definitely a movie for theater, not for a small home television. If you get interested in this movie, you should go see it in a theatre.

A wordless summation of our art, history, culture, lifestyle & experience in a world of wonders, Samsara is a richly layered, finely textured & deeply spiritual documentary that invites the audience on a journey of the soul, and overwhelms their senses with its immaculate blend of breathtaking imagery & soulful soundtrack.

Filmed in 70 mm format and shot in 25 countries spanning 5 continents, the picture combines visual & aural elements into a transcendent piece that's as resonant as it is rhythmic and lets the images guide the flow instead of relying on verbal narration. It took the filmmakers 5 years to finish the project but in the end, it is worth the wait.

The camera employs photography techniques ranging from time-lapse to slow-mo, gathering images from the most obscure locations to the most recognisable places, and stitches them all together into a gorgeous tapestry that not only illuminates our links with the nature but also highlights how our life cycle mirrors the planet we take for granted.

Its non-narrative treatment & form over content approach isn't going to appease all palates but there's an ethereal, soothing quality to its frames that speaks directly to the heart, mind & soul if one chooses to go with the breeze. But as it skims through ancient sites, sacred grounds, old age rituals, industrial complexes & materialism, it does pose some interesting questions.

Overall, Samsara is as intimate as it is vast in its reach, as obscure as it is clear in its message, and as elusive as it is obvious in its connections. Though the first half is nearly flawless, it does begin to lose its grip in the next but still manages to bring its globetrotting odyssey full circle in the end. To sum it all up, Ron Fricke's latest is no less than a sumptuously arranged guided meditation.

Shot in glorious Panavision Super 70 (65mm) 'Samsara' is another one of those wordless pretty-picture films that works in various modes that as an overarching theme basically has the impermanence of everything. The tranquil start juxtaposes human achievement (culture, art,...) with a tumultuous nature (volcanoes, erosion,...) provoking the question of how we can exist let alone be creative in a world that doesn't give a sh!t. This section at some point becomes about the interaction between human art and what you may want to call natural art with images of ancient constructions being transformed by nature over time which has a beauty all of its own.

Then things get more lively (including the music, of course) as the film goes into "Mondo Cane" mode with cultural weirdness from all over the world like a corpse getting carried over a cemetery and buried in a coffin in the shape of a gun. Other coffins on display have the shape of fish and airplanes. The film visits various slaughterhouses (pigs, chickens and cows all get the automatized Ax) which leads straight to humanoid robots and to sex dolls whose faces are juxtaposed with those of dancing ladyboys in a Taiwanese club with interconnecting footage of plastic surgeries.

The third mode is that of crowds and how they act in union like tens of thousands of people praying in Mekka, running around that stone, kneeling, standing up, etc. There are the dazzling lights of a metropolis from the bird's-eye view and thousands of prisoners dancing in formation to a sweat-inducing dance beat. In the end 'Samsara' comes back to the images of the beginning with monks who painstakingly created a picture made of sand looking at the picture for a few seconds and then wiping it off the floor again and collecting the now multicolored sand in a bowl. The last image is that of dunes shaped by wind, the fate of everything on this planet.

No matter if 'Samsara' uses a stationary camera, a steady camera or helicopter shots; no matter if it focuses on details, on individuals or on crowds; no matter if it uses high-speed photography, time-lapse photography or plain normal speed; it is always great-looking due to the high resolution and most notably due to the staggering ever-present smoothness of motion that gives a true impression of not just a floating camera but maybe even of a floating world without ever having to leave the Earth's atmosphere.

This Film captures exactly the great practical joke that is the Human condition. There is just enough beauty to hold the ugliness in check. Life offers an enormous amount of unnecessary suffering and despair only to keep depression at bay with doses of beauty and charity and sacrifice.

Watching this enormously engrossing visual landscape the heart is both warmed and broken. The extremely insensitive and uncompromising modernity, all destined to disintegrate into the sands of time.

The Film lays out the beautiful coating of our Planet, but its underbelly is a constant and bizarre barrage of destruction and decay, some natural, some not so. It is a superficial existence with a lush and plush feeling, but also with a nagging reminder that things can get really ugly really fast.

This can be a hard watch, at times, and that is ironic because of some of the sumptuous images. However, it truly and without apology, offers those breathtaking portrayals along with the other side. That offensive, disturbing, and unattractive side. It seems to say, it's a colorful cruel joke this here Life, and the Filmmaker is in on it.

Just watched the Sky Screening at Greenwich-O2. Thank you Sky for the ticket.

Amazing movie with great visuals (mind it... no added CG). The time lapse sequences were simply amazing. Can totally believe that it took 5 years to complete the picturization. Every second spent on creating this visual symphony is worth it. Real impressed with the production team's reach. They even managed to capture amazing sequences from within a jail in China.

Now I need to find a way of watching this team's 1992 movie 'Baraka'. I sincerely hope that it is commercially successful so that, we can see more from this amazing team.

Samsara is a hard film to explain. The closest film to it is Manufactured Landscapes. Samasara was filmed in 70 mm. It is meant for the big screen. It just shows you strange things, without a hint of judgement. It is so visually overwhelming and varied, you do not get bored.

It was filmed all over the world showing dramatic landscapes, architecture or human activity.

It has a sound track, but no dialogue or narration. You are not even told where on earth you are. You have to figure out everything for yourself. It raises so many questions and gives you no way to answer them.

It has a few clichés.

1. showing a scene over a day in stop motion so the shadows race across the ground.

2. showing people just quietly staring at the camera doing nothing. You get to study them.

3. alternately showing opulence and desolation.

What is the point of this movie? Showing you what a mind-blowing place our planet is.

Viewers who have enjoyed Ron Fricke's work in the past know what they're in for, and "Samsara" delivers the goods. For people not familiar with his prior works: His films contain some of the most perfect cinematography ever put to screen, from a technical as well as aesthetical POV. The images are breathtaking and often provocative. Decay and bloom, culture and nature, quiet and loud, slow and fast - this film centers on strong contrasts, in cinematography as well as motifs. Scenes of beauty are in juxtaposition with ugliness and cruelty, and every few minutes people are staring at you with questioning eyes, daring you to construct meaning.

If this film doesn't get 10/10 from me, it's because, as good as Fricke is from the technical POV, I would like his images to be a bit more adventurous. What we see here is extremely classic photography and cinematography, with very balanced screen layouts and contrasts and motifs - there's nearly nothing here to surprise me, nearly no frame that hasn't been shot before in a similar (if technically inferior) manner. Still highly recommended!

This is one of the strangest films I have ever seen. I'm not sure it even qualifies as a film in the traditional sense. Could it be classed as one of the very few silent colour films? Whatever it is, I was impressed. It's like flicking through a Technicolor encyclopaedia.

Developing themes from his earlier 'Baraka', Ron Fricke's documentary uses 70mm film to show mostly a series of still images, with some motion shots. Entirely wordless, except for an Enya-esque soundtrack, 'Samsara' (Sanskrit for 'cycle of worldly existence') is more accessible than Terrence Malick's 'The Tree of Life', which it resembles pictorially and, to a lesser extent, conceptually.

Wikipedia describes this film as having no narrative. I think that's wrong. The heterogeneous images of various cultures and vistas, culled over five years from 25 countries, from America to China, Israel to Indonesia, aren't random. They link to form a point: that the world is wonderful, horrible, spectacular, confusing and beautiful – and will be ad infinitum.

The first half contains scenes of the natural world, while the second half deals (with more than a hint of a religious bent) with man and all that he does to undo nature. I was struck particularly by the 'consumption' sequences, showing the mass-slaughtering of animals followed by shots of people happily devouring them as junk food.

At 102 minutes this is Fricke's longest feature, and I did feel it was overlong. No impact would have been lost if this was as short as his other films. The frequent use of time-lapse photography was a noticeable distraction, for no other reason than the images remained more or less constant throughout the jumps.

The way people and landmarks are filmed is interesting. The camera gazes at subjects, and captures landmarks at uncommon angles. It's as if we're discovering these spectacles for the first time. I'm sure I haven't quite conveyed my point, but if you see this visual feast, you'll see what I'm trying to say.

www.moseleyb13.com

Samsara frequently juxtaposes contrasting images related to religion, birth, death, and transcendence. Each image, be it of pagodas in a mist or a baby's toes, could be right out of a splendid coffee table book of National Geographic pictures.

So, this lyrical documentary can be appreciated on several levels such as photographic excellence, the ironies of nature, or the complexity of humanity. The decimation of the Ninth Ward in New Orleans can contrast with the beauty of a colorful sand Mandela carefully constructed and destroyed by Buddhist monks. The evanescence of human constructs and the permanence of Nature can further be highlighted by shots of the stone monuments in Arizona and Utah.

Director Ron Fricke of Baraka (1992) teams again with producer Mark Magidson to employ Super Panavision 70 and time-lapse photography for jaw-dropping images in what Magidson calls "guided meditation." Although nonverbal, the message is clear: Man has yet to create enduring structures such as nature's, but splendid Mont St. Michel and the Dubai Tower are pretty good attempts.

The multi-limbed goddess of Balinese dancers is both precious and colorful, a moving image of man's beauty that promises immortality. A flash-mob-like dance in a Filipino prison is as powerful an evocation of the contradictions in human nature as any of the monolithic constructs of nature.

If you like cinematography, and even if you don't like heavy-handed messages, this film will give you beautiful images that you can see nowhere else, even when you see them in person—that's the magic of movies.

Samsara (Tibetan word meaning "the wheel of life") was an attempt to capture the images of today's so-called globalized word, which by the way is fading away. Yes, after 20 years of seemingly unstoppable globalization, or should I say Westernization, this economic and cultural process is coming to an end. But this is another matter. The question is does the film succeed in making sense of what's going on? No, it does not. If compared with the best works of its genre like Man With A Movie Camera (1929) and Koyaanisqatsi (1982) Samsara lacks intellect and purpose. Still, I can't deny that the 65mm stock images captured by director Ron Fricke are mostly impressive. Most of the film is beautifully shot and accompanied by a suitable score by Michael Stearns. It's certainly an absorbing motion picture. However, I'm not an admirer of Fricke's work because of his choice of locations. Why, for example, devote so much time filming in Asia and Africa? There are other interesting places in the world, like Russia and even the United States. And why does the film have to have these somber messages about globalization and nature? One can easily find a lot of beauty in the world too. And even in the Americas not everything is about guns and slums. One can easily find a lot of beauty there. For example, Koyaanisqatsi wasn't all about nature contrasted with industry. It also featured beautiful city scenery, and its message came across much better. Still, Samsara is a fine work. It features some remarkable images, including Muslims visiting the holy city of Mecca. It's not a classic but it's worth recommending.

Samsara, Ron Fricke's spiritual sequel to Baraka 20 years later, is much of the same style with a wordless series of beautifully shot images set to a world music soundtrack. I saw Baraka a long time ago on perhaps a far too small screen and I can't remember it much, but I did think it was good even if it doesn't stand up to the similar Koyaanisqatsi, 10 years prior. Baraka was showing off the camera and perhaps required a cinema viewing and I'm glad I managed to see Samsara on the big screen. It has more of a purpose expressed through it's stream of consciousness style. Through the editing, many parallels of aspects of culture around the world are made, particularly in the contrasts with contrived reaction shots showing Fricke's opinion. Sometimes it is too obvious, and sometimes it's too ambiguous but sometimes it's very powerful and the image itself stands alone. While it has profound and therapeutic moments that are reminders of our place in the universe, it does focus on some unsettling sequences, such as an art drama scene with a man repeatedly covering and removing his face with clay, farm animals being harvested and sex dolls and robots up close.

There's a distinct theme of eyes, both human and drawn, looking directly into the lens which while it gives the film a sense of intimacy, it adds to the unsettling nature as the film observes the audience and provokes reflection, even if that requires more staged moments than the natural spontaneity a documentary of this nature should have. Although the film lacks definitive structure, I was very glad to see that it returns to some of the things in its opening minutes later in the film. The time lapses and use of a crane were the best moments, especially when the styles were mixed up such as showing statues of human statues and the night sky revolving at exactly the right pace to get a sense of time. Samsara is a very passionate and patient film, though as we now live in an era of television with highly produced nature documentaries on everything imaginable, it doesn't particularly say anything that hasn't already been explored but it's always refreshing to feel a connection and a perspective on life around the world.

8/10

I did watch the whole movie. The filmmakers tried to create a spiritual documentary without any understanding of foreign cultures and traditions.

The result is a pathetic and very shallow bunch of scenes. It's like posting random images with 'deep' quotes on Facebook.

The movie is heavily targeted on average uneducated narrow-minded people. That's too bad many people will get some scenes totally wrong because they just do not know the story of a certain place/people and just see a picture presented with a certain "message". Sad truth is - it seems that the director also got those scenes wrong. I say go watch some real documentaries, read books and travel.