A: In the Waltz with Bashir trailer, the central subject seems to be about a veteran of a war in Lebanon recovering his memories that he lost. The whole trailer is animated over live footage, which bring a very stylistic kind of feeling. It also allows the creators to creatively imbue the work with proper emotional themes. The three moments that stood out to me the most in the trailer were when Bashir was looking back on his younger self through pictures, returning to places he had been, and talking to people who knew him in that time. These stood out to me because I felt they most clearly laid out what the documentary was going to be about.
B: I chose to watch Baraka. This film is hard to break down in 3-5 sections because there isn’t much of a narrative structure. However, I did notice the first third of the film seemed to focus on religion across the world and explored places like Africa, Asia, and different parts of the Americas. The second part of the documentary showed a lot of high population cities, and the difference between the extremely rich and the extremely poor. The last part of the documentary focuses on war and the fight over resources, such as oil. For the transitions, the film used a lot of landscapes shots to help establish the setting, followed by a music change to cue the viewer in that the film was moving on. The narrative in Baraka is hard to define, as most of it focuses on different ceremonies and ways of living. This could be considered a positive thing as it can allow the viewer to take the film as how they interpreted it, which I think creates a more human experience.
C: The documentary has quite a few shots that seem sped up or slowed down. It also uses a variety of wide, medium and close up shots depending on what the film was portraying at the time. The lighting was very natural as it seems most of it was shot during the day.The film’s pacing fit a very nice 5-10 second mark, and there were no interviews. The film itself doesn’t have a very linear path or structure, due to the nature of what it’s covering, which seems to be important things found throughout different cultures.
D: This film seems to focus on how different cultures have many similar aspects with each other, and seems to be a rallying call to all people that’s saying we’re all human. To take this a step further, there are many scenes of animals displaying human behaviors, which I interpreted as humans still being a part of nature, and that everything is connected. One word I’d use to describe Baraka would be human. I feel as though this film really encapsulates what it means to be human by showing so many different cultures and ways of living and allowing the audience to take it in with no commentary to flavor what the audience may think. This leads into what I think would be “improper” technique. Although I don’t think leaving commentary out of the film was necessarily improper, it is definitely unusual and unique choice. I think allowing the viewer to come to their own conclusion is an important part to the experience they were trying to deliver.
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