Baraka, Putain 5:30 AM

I have to wake up in about 4 hours because for one of the modules here there is a field trip. This morning was fraught with us wondering what to do for the post-March period, because there's this really relevant Creative Crafting course, but we're not sure if we'll be able to cope with it and not waste the opportunity to travel - which is, essentially what Exchange is all about.

The same guy in charge of it was the lecturing faculty for our Metaphors & Narratives class, and he showed us the "documentary" Baraka. I don't know how to classify this film exactly because it is a montage film that speaks volumes but deals with nothing specifically. One sees a pattern emerge after getting bored by the first 30 mins, then watch the themes develop a little, making sense and meaning of each image on your own, then doze off at about the 45 mins mark, jolt awake, listen to the now-exciting tempo portion with image depicting the perennial nature of War, stare intently at the scenes of genocide and atrocity, get restless and make comments to your sleeping neighbour, feel the sense of awe at the natural beauty of the world, wonder if this next scene brings the movie to a close, OH NO, it opens up again with a new scene of rock formations and drumbeats, it drags on, now the...

I wouldn't recommend watching this movie unless one has plenty of patience and/or are forced to watch it for class. The module coordinator herself fell asleep at one point, it was that draggy a film.

10,000 points for cinematography and thematic treatment. 0 because this idea of a 95-minute long montage movie is seriously meant only for the uber-cool-obscure-film-geek. Check it out if you ever find it. I don't have a copy with me. I'm too impatient a soul at the moment to even pretend that I could fully appreciate the film and claim some cooler-than-thou cult-following stature.

I've got to wake up at 5.30 to get ready to leave for some place 3.5 hours away from campus. This is for a module.

I always have epiphanies in the washroom/shower, but I always forget these truths once I leave. It's disconcerting.