'Baraka'
Native sum

RON FRICKE'S NARRATIVE - and narration-free 1992 feature roams the globe in search of stunning images, offering up one after another – in glorious 70mm, to which format this rerelease has been restored. The image clarity and depth is outclassed only by Imax movies (Fricke had previously directed the similar Chronos in that process); the format, style, and thematic undercurrents owe a great deal to Koyaanisqatsi (which Fricke photographed and co-edited). In other words, it's a sort of National Geographic-travelogue head-flick for New Agers, eco-absolutists, and guilt-savoring first worlders of every stripe. The nature = good, human progress = bad gist is simplistic, to say the least, but duly overwhelmed by pure physical beauty and Michael Stearns's score of drizzling synthesizer washes and world beat snippets. I find suspect the ultimate spiritual import of a movie that stereotypes all Western and or urban life as decadent, joyless, and miserable, while flattering "simpler" (tribal, monastic) lifestyles seemingly because they can serve as spectacle – Fricke likes to capture people (when he notices them at all) in ornamental clusters, clad in eye-popping ceremonial costumes, all doing the same moves at the same time. So, by the way, did Busby Berkeley. (Dennis Harvey)