Ron Fricke's Baraka is one of the most haunting cinematic experiences you'll ever have, a non-narrative documentary about the various trials and tribulations of life on Earth. The massively-acclaimed stand-out sequence of the movie is the montage set to Dead Can Dance's elegiac The Host of Seraphim, in which we observe a number of bleak scenes of poverty, most memorably a landfill in Calcutta. We see the citizens poring over trash looking for goods they might be able to sell, all while a dumptruck piles on yet more rubbish. It's a startling, disturbing image that causes most of us as comfortable, well-fed Westerners to feel an immense sense of gratitude for our lives, and perhaps also a sense of guilt over the inequality in the world. That people have to live like this is deeply unsettling, and juxtaposition of the impoverished people with the expensive machinery in the background only enhances this feeling. It's a simple message for sure, albeit one that's elegantly composed and utterly vital.
Stay at home dad who spends as much time teaching his kids the merits of Martin Scorsese as possible (against the missus' wishes).
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