It doesn’t aim to entertain. There were parts I found
disturbing, parts I found so disturbing that I couldn’t watch, and parts I
couldn’t take my eyes off. I think it’s probably the most powerful film I’ve
ever seen. It takes you on a rollercoaster ride up to the heaven of the
exquisite, down to the hell of the human condition, back up to heaven for
lesson number two, and then settles you back onto the plain of an endless
desert. I came away full of wide eyed wonder, having been more engrossed and unsettled
than entertained. I found myself desperate for the big spaceship from a superior
alien culture to descend from the heavens and set about turning the guns to
plastic, freeing all the battery-farmed animals, and collecting all the money
from all the bank accounts and distributing the proceeds on a more even basis.
But then I had a question: why did they call it Samsara? In Buddhist philosophy, Samsara
is not just the world of phenomenal form, but also the state of mind which is
trapped in the illusion that such a world represents reality. So is the film
merely a travelogue from one extreme of the phenomenal world to the other, or
should it be seen as something like a Buddhist sand mandala – an intricate
piece of art made with skill, dedication and infinite patience, and then swept
away to demonstrate that it’s all just an illusion made of coloured dust?
Must talk to Mel about this. She used to be a Buddhist.
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