It took me a long time from hearing about Baraka to the time I actually got to see it, I had never heard of it before but was told that it was an amazing film with highly emotive and changed music that would change me life.

That’s a lot to live up to, but it’s the kind of thing I’d buy into, so I picked up the DVD and then for about 5 months I didn’t watch it, waiting from the right time and frame of mind, which tuned out to be settled down with a couple close friends and some mildly mind altering substances in a hill top cottage deep in Wales.

I wasn’t ready for just how moving the film was, while it starts of with some scenes of incredible beauty form across the world, several of which seem to be the ones used in National Geographic Channel adverts on TV, but then moving on to show Man’s impact on the world, with no actual spoken narrative over the chants and noise of the settings the whole film is driven by the soundtrack produced by “Dead Can Dance” and others.

You do need to be in the right frame of mind for this, and in many ways it’s not so much a film as a piece of audio and visual art that displays a moving image of the earth and it’s inhabitants. But I do feel it’s one of those films everyone should see at least once at some point in their lives, so long as you’re prepared to settle down and take in what it shows you.