Samsara

Apparently, in Sanskrit the word "Samsara" can mean both wandering and world and is generally used in the context of the reincarnation of a soul from one body to the next. That's what this engaging drama attempts to explore and explain over a couple of hours that contrasts quite remarkably the different approaches to the same end product taken by folks thousands of miles apart. From the monastic existences in Laos to far away Zanzibar, and using completely differing religious conduits, we see just how communities look at death and grief, but not as western cultures would perhaps identify them, but as merely stepping stones from and to somewhere else. Maybe better maybe worse - but certainly new, and not necessarily local, either. It's a simple philosophy that has stood these peoples in good stead over many years of war, oppression, famine and yet they still retain an optimism and an humanity that's positive in a pragmatic as well as a dogmatic manner. It's also quite quirky at times using an hybrid of styles of imagery (beware an hour or so in if you're photosensitive) and some quite enlightening conversation with and amongst ordinary people. At times it's borderline soporific, at others lively and vibrant - but what I found most of all is that it invites people to think. I haven't a religious bone in my body, but this isn't really about religion - or even faith, per se. It's about spirit and a community with our surroundings - and though I think it is too long, it's a film that leaves you with something to think about.

We were wanting to watch Fricke's Samsara and bought this by mistake. The most disappointing this about this film is the poor image quality. There are some beautifully composed well-framed shots but the picture quality is poor. This film is about death... and it nearly killed me. Boring, intolerably slow, it gets praised only because it's about poverty-stricken people. It's like everyone feels compelled to say this is profound because it's so 'foreign.' In truth it's a miserable long-winded documentary that labours it's thin philosophical offering. As an attempt to bring reincarnation to life (bad pun intended) it succeeds mainly in inducing coma. From a western perspective it certainly offers some insight into very different cultures but it's just bad story-telling. The flimsiest thread holds the whole thing together.

There is a harmonious coexistence of beauty, spirituality, and all forms of lives in the film. Samsara conceptualizes the cycle of life and how all living beings are part of the same energy through a meditative and transformative existential experience about life after death that blurs the limits delineating the expected of reality but also of the cinematic experience itself and its multisensory nature, focusing on the enhancement of the possible, not by adding but by subtracting.

Samsara is a word that comes from Sanskrit meaning "passing through", or "cyclic change." The cyclicity of all life, matter, and existence is a fundamental belief of most Indian religions. Despite spirituality being at its core, and consequently religion, Lois Patiño, who directed and co-wrote the movie with Garbiñe Ortega, does not believe in reincarnation. He admitted being interested in exploring how religions approach the concept from different perspectives, conveying cultural and religious diversity, and how they sometimes converge in a harmonious spirituality. Conceptually, rebirth is something that can help to mitigate fear of death every finite conscious being has at one time or another. His choice of not filming in Tibet or Thailand was to differentiate with usual depictions of the theme, but also to distance himself with Apichatpong Weerasethakul who made Loong Boonmee raleuk chat (2010), a movie that bears a closeness to Patiño's. This is the reason why the movie takes place in Laos and Zanzibar. Two different places with two different religions, Buddhism and Islam. Therefore, it could be argued that Samsara is not a religious movie, nor it tries to impose a single point of view since it thematically covers rebirth in different ways. In Buddhism, bardo stands for an intermediate, transitional, or liminal state between death and rebirth. This reincarnation journey is thematically explored in the film, starting in the first act, where in a temple in Laos teenage monks help people in their soul travel through bardo.

Visually, the movie is beautiful. The landscapes of waterfalls, rivers, beaches, and jungle, pose not only an invitation to be part of that ecosystem, but also an enhancement of the meditative solace the movie evokes. Echoes of a suspended cinematic experience that allows to inhabit images and spaces as if filmmaking were the art of carving the horizontal. There is an enchanting quality that is felt every minute in the realization of being surrounded by nature. The sight and sound of birds, water, and leaves serve as a reminder of it. A reminder also expressed visually in the juxtapositions of images of mosaics of elephants, the animal of Laos identity. Aesthetic decisions producing an experienced etherealization and also postulating the naturalization and further importance of animals for what is to come. It also poses a distributed anti-speciesism, furthering its aim at portraying the cycle of life. This preparation is not limited to animals. The importance of sound in bardo is reinforced by the fact that the book used by the monks to help people in their journey has to be read aloud by another person. This also offers a preparation for what will follow.

In the medley, Lois Patiño gives to the art of cinematography a perspective that gives a whole new dimension to the idea of inviting the audience to be part of the experience. Being invited to close your eyes in the movie theater is a challenge to cinematic sensibilities, a radical act in itself. What he does to convey the journey of rebirth is something that bears a resemblance to what Stanley Kubrick did in the sequence 'Jupiter and Beyond' of 2001: A Space Odyssey, if only when it comes to experiencing something new that is almost impossible to find oneself not being interpellated by. If Kubrick used computer generated images to depict abstract, surreal, and striking scenarios, Patiño leans on a minimalistic use of images, lights striking the senses as thunder, and monochromatic screens to induce different reactions to the dynamism of color and the absence of it. If Kubrick expanded the cinematic form visually, Patiño does it sonorously by erasing the limits soundscape presents and formulating new possibilities. A sensory expedition into the unknown through sound and sight bearing resemblance to identifiable elements only surfacing in the enhanced auditory specter as if one were an unmaterialized being moving through (un)charted territories. A sonorous journey through distant places in which rebirth is a possibility. This multi-spatiality through sound could be interpreted as the soul indecisively searching for a place to reborn, but also as energy beckoning the soul to reincarnate in a given place. Said given place, whose potentiality in the process is never certain, might offer elements rendering it legible. Whether known or unknown, they all converge in one commonality; features of an experience difficult to articulate given its abstract nature, a lingua ignota resisting any attempt of materializing into words.

What follows is a third act whose hypnagogic beginning is the direct result of the immersive multisensory experience that came before. Lois Patiño displaces the theme of cyclic change and offers broader explorations whose expansiveness serves to delve further in Samsara as a concept. He also postulates ideas related to animals that beg questions about speciesism. Blaise Pascal posited the philosophical argument, commonly known as Pascal's wager, that it is rationally advisable to lead a life consistently in accordance with the existence of God and strive to believe, for, if God doesn't exist, people only sacrificed certain pleasures and luxuries, but, if God does exist, then the gains of an eternity in heaven greatly surpass the losses, let alone the avoidance of a significant loss of an eternity spent in hell. In this sense, wouldn't it follow that it would be equally rational and advisable to lead a life free of speciesism if reincarnation were to exist? It could be argued that the potentiality of a 'punishment' in the form of rebirth in a deemed 'lower status life' is of no importance considering the individual has no memory of their past life/lives. This is a good argument and successfully exemplifies why the answer to the question of reincarnation does not pose a tangible difference. Can we speak of a continuity if it presupposes the loss of memory, of an identity whose construction is reflexive of its experiences?

Like an illusionist, Lois Patiño casts a spell on us and for two hours we are under an illusion allowing us to perceive the world around us in different ways. It is like the opening of a door that wasn't necessarily closed, but lost or unknown. Samsara is not just a movie, it is a unique, profound, and immersive experience that offers the cinematic language a new form. An ode to artistic creativity.

The movie starts interesting with spiritual feelings about the Buddhist way of living, feeling and thinking. Concentrated on feeling and thinking and trying to understand our connection to the universe and the way people came to life, live, die and how their spirit continues in the next life. After the experience with the eyes closed (part 2), very similar to 2001 but much less impressive. This also applies to the next phase of life in part 3, the ghost of grandma Mon reincarnated in a goat. There the depth of the 1st part completely evaporates. Spirituality and the essence of life and death completely dissolve in the superficial way of life and thinking of the people in the Zambian village. The disappearance of the goat into thin air fits well into the complete nothingness of the 3rd part of the film.

The movie Samsara is about a soul's journey through death and rebirth. It starts in a Buddhist temple in Laos and ends with reincarnation in Tanzania. It delves into these themes, reflecting perspectives inspired by both Buddhist and Islamic traditions. The movie's magic lies in the naturalness of its scenes and characters, combined with its ability to take viewers on a meditative and immersive visual journey.

Director Lois Patiño creates a movie with breathtaking cinematography, using and blending elements of religiosity, nature, and animals to illustrate a full cycle of life, where beings could reincarnate as different humans, plants, or animals.