Baraka

Shot on Todd-AO 70mm stock, so that every image positively shimmers, Ron Fricke's heartfelt film is, sadly, a wasted opportunity. The ecological points he makes are blatant and laboured, while his overreliance on snazzy editing and time-lapse photography draws too much attention to technique at the expense of the visual content. The contrasts between urban jungles and the areas of natural beauty they imperil do occasionally strike home, but, 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.