Ron Fricke's Samsara: A Visual Essay on Human Existence

Introduction: Art Without Narrative

Ron Fricke's 2011 film Samsara is more a piece of art than a conventional documentary. Without any dialogue, characterization, or plot, it lacks the hallmarks of narrative cinema. Yet the viewer comes away feeling changed, and Fricke does manage to impart meaning and significance to every image on screen. The story being told is a meta-narrative of human existence, offering deep commentary on issues such as art, religion, war, science, and nature.

Cinematography and Visual Language

The cinematography is the calling card for Samsara. Shot in 70mm, the series of images reads like a photo collage. At times it resembles an expertly rendered travel brochure; at others, a National Geographic exploration of the world. The visual imagery is accompanied by a soundtrack, but there is no narration or language to accompany the spectacle. It is almost as if Fricke is deliberately pointing out the limitations of human language in describing experiences like love, war, life, and death.

The title of the film draws on the Sanskrit concept of samsara — the wheel of birth, death, and rebirth to which human beings are bound and from which we should hope to transcend. As such, the title perfectly suits its material. Fricke shows scenes of all three elements: birth, death, and rebirth. There is great hope in the imagery on screen, but there is also great sorrow and suffering.

Nature, Art, and Moral Ambiguity

Fricke plays with the audience's emotions in surprising ways, mingling imagery that inspires joy, curiosity, and wonder with imagery that directly depicts pain and suffering — or at least suggests it. Among the more uplifting scenes are those depicting the natural wonders of the world, from the Sahara Desert to smoldering volcanoes. Anyone with a love of travel will yearn to visit the places on camera. Moreover, this imagery is largely devoid of explicit ethics, except those the viewer ascribes to it — a sense of responsibility for caring for the earth and serving as a custodian of the planet. Fricke is clearly concerned with the ways human beings are caring, or failing to care, for the natural world, and several scenes of natural disasters and pollution make his intent clear.

The imagery of dancers from Indonesia and other places around the world, alongside other artistic and cultural events, is genuinely inspiring. Unlike the natural wonders, the human wonders are shown to require tremendous feats of individual effort and accomplishment — images designed to inspire greatness. Yet similar to the imagery of the natural world, the pursuit of artistic perfection is a morally neutral pursuit that can nonetheless assume great ethical and political importance. For instance, the architectural marvels of Christianity in Europe were built in part on the blood shed by crusaders and, later, imperialists.

Conclusion: The Wheel of Human Existence

Samsara reveals the dichotomies that define human experience and suggests what might happen if we collectively directed our minds and energy toward something better than greed, hatred, and antagonism. The film borders on being overly ambitious, touching upon too many themes at once. Yet a strong thread of continuity ties it all together, and that thread is represented by the title itself. Everything seen on screen — from rampant poverty to outrageous wealth, from nuclear annihilation to the most wondrous waterfall — is real and is part of human existence. The film asks us to think more deeply about the world we live in, which is something many ordinary films never attempt.