Baraka

The film's one-world thesis is asserted but never made convincing, as Fricke zigzags from the Western Wall to whirling dervishes to the Grand Mosque of Mecca in a superficial gloss on faith (and everything else).

Any one sequence might work powerfully in its own right, but string them together with a musical overlay and the banality of the connections becomes apparent.

The form is ravishing, though the content suffers by comparison.

Nothing in this epic visual poem is less than extraordinary.

It is claimed that the great age of travel is dead - that there are no longer amazing, exotic, beautiful and fearsome places for the traveler to discover. A movie like Baraka gives hope.

Among the most overwhelmingly gorgeous films ever made.

While it's easy to look at these often beautiful moving postcards, Fricke presents locations without identifying them, so most viewers will quickly find themselves lost and overwhelmed.

A cinematic sight for sore eyes.

The only reaction permitted is gawping.

A cinematic gap year of forest temples, baking deserts and teeming cities.

Breathtaking and serenely beautiful to watch, Baraka is still the visual delight it was twenty years ago, thanks to phenomenal photography, superb editing and a strapping score.

Either an awesome vision of the world in all its time-lapsed wonder or visual whale music.