Baraka is a
documentary film with no
narrative or
voice-over. It explores themes via a compilation of natural events, life, human activities and technological phenomena shot in 24 countries on six continents over a 14-month period.
The film is named after the
Islamic concept of
baraka, meaning blessing, essence or breath.[5][4]
The film is
Ron Fricke's follow-up to
Godfrey Reggio's similar non-verbal documentary film Koyaanisqatsi. Fricke was cinematographer and collaborator on Reggio's film, and for Baraka he struck out on his own to polish and expand the photographic techniques used on Koyaanisqatsi. Shot in
70 mm, it includes a mixture of photographic styles including
slow motion and
time-lapse. Two camera systems were used to achieve this. A
Todd-AO system was used to shoot conventional frame rates, but to execute the film's time-lapse sequences Fricke had a special camera built that combined
time-lapse photography with perfectly controlled movements.[6]
The film features a number of long
tracking shots through various settings, including
Auschwitz and
Tuol Sleng, over photos of the people involved, past skulls stacked in a room, to a spread of bones. It suggests a universal cultural perspective: a shot of an elaborate
tattoo on a bathing Japanese
yakuza precedes a view of tribal paint.
Reissue
Following previous
DVD releases, in 2007 the original 65 mm negative was rescanned at
8K resolution with equipment designed specifically for Baraka at
FotoKem Laboratories. The automated 8K
film scanner, operating continuously, took more than three weeks to finish scanning more than 150,000 frames (taking approximately twelve to thirteen seconds to scan each frame), producing over thirty
terabytes of image data in total.
After a 16-month
digital intermediate process, including a 96 kHz/24-bit audio
remaster by Stearns for the
DTS-HD Master Audiosoundtrack, the result was re-released on DVD and
Blu-ray in October 2008. At the time, project supervisor Andrew Oran described the reissue of Baraka as "arguably the highest-quality DVD that's ever been made".[7]Chicago Sun-Times critic
Roger Ebert described the Blu-ray release as "the finest video disc I have ever viewed or ever imagined."[4]
Baraka holds a score of 81% on
Rotten Tomatoes out of twenty-six reviews.[2]Roger Ebert included the film in his "Great Movies" list, writing: "If man sends another Voyager to the distant stars and it can carry only one film on board, that film might be Baraka."[4]