The infinite cycle of rebirth (samsara in Sanskrit) in the face of the majestic eternity of nature.

Picture gallery

In a Buddhist temple high in the mountains of Tibet, child monks watch their older confederates make a mandala with different colored sands. The camera moves along a mountainous landscape to volcanoes, a desert, tropical forests and waterfalls, and moving clouds. Soon the focus is on humans: the absurdity of human existence is underlined with accelerated images of traffic on highways, assembly line work for electronics, food consumption (with footage of the “dismantling” of live chickens as they are wrapped in cellophane), munitions manufacturing, etc. Among a thousand and one scenes, the one that stands out is of a man freaking out behind his desk who suddenly smears himself with mud. In the end, the camera comes back to the temple, to Indonesian dancers and the mandala, which is destroyed with a simple gesture...

This highly esthetic film by Ron Fricke (in the same vein as 1992's Baraka) has no dialogue but is masterfully set to music and is more than a documentary. With no linear plot, it functions by association, with one image leading naturally to the next. Viewers can let themselves be taken along by the current, realizing that in the face of eternity, everything is ephemeral. The proof: time passes without really being noticed.