4- Editing: Juxtaposition and Storytelling

Editing: Juxtaposition and Storytelling

By Alyana, Christopher and Victoria

Baraka (Ron Fricke, USA, 1992, 96 min.)

Introduction

Baraka and Microcosmos: The Grass People are both documentaries that lack verbal dialogue however, they make up for this missing factor with an incredible visual experience. They present new perspectives on worlds that unfold around us, ones that remain unseen. Both films have striking images that last in our memories and a musical score to accompany the rhythm of the environment being shot. They attempt to draw our attention to things most people ignore. In Microcosmos: The Grass People we are shown a world that lives beneath our feet. The magnitude of amplification allows us to see things that are naked to the human eye. Baraka uncovers how we have been living and critiques the modern world. It propels us to reconnect and rediscover the nature that surrounds us. Both films use dimensions of film editing to amplify their message, and adopt juxtaposition to show contrast and difference

“Baraka Speaks”

Everyone has their own perception of the world. The way we see it, hear it, smell it, and feel it all vary depending on how we perceive life. These senses are what make us human. Our beliefs, ethics, preferences and dislikes are the things that differentiate us from one another. However, we are all linked by the good or evil of humanity based on what experiences we are faced with. We are able to deal with obstacles and find what it is that makes us feel human. A method of capturing what life is by documentary film.

The film assigned for this week’s discussion was “Baraka” directed by H. Ron Fricke. It explores the realities that our society may sometimes overlook by presenting social, spiritual and cultural occurrences throughout history. These ideas are captured through a series of clever visual and audio imagery of the juxtapositions of life as we know it. The disturbance of our peace and the harmony of our destruction are projected on screen. From this, we can self-reflect and ultimately question the nature of our actions.

Initially, you may think this “sounds” like any standard documentary, but there’s a catch. The director enhances the viewer’s experience by omitting the use of words entirely in the film. By removing the element of spoken or written words, it allows the film to speak for itself. Without narration, there is no language barrier. Everyone can experience the same cinematic journey while the film is able to translate itself through its powerful images and music.

Generally, everything from books to movies is built the same way. Although visual and auditory elements are what make a film great, there is another crucial element. In class, we studied the importance of storytelling in film. Like a firm foundation, a plot is essential to generating a sequence of images that make sense and still convey the message of the film. We saw that there are two parts to analysing a storyline. Firstly, there is the paradigmatic axis which conveys the meaning of a scene or event during a story. Then there is a syntagmatic axis which correlates these ideas all together. The relationship between the director’s concepts and ideas throughout the movie are all linked through this method of storytelling.

A way this storytelling is merged into film is by a series of heavy editing. Editing is a tool that is also vital to a film in smoothly and effectively delivering the director’s message by cutting and placing scenes into something pleasant to watch. This is a strategy used in their films which are classified as the “Four Dimensions of Filming”. What are these dimensions you may ask? It is the graphic, rhythmic, spatial and temporal relations of film editing. Basically, these are the properties of visual transitions (color,shape) scene duration (fast,slow), developmental contrasts (same,different), and sense of time (present,past) in a movie.

From “Baraka”, we can see how these dimensions are applied to film. The sense of rhythm was used quite a lot during factory or industrial scenes to express the fast lifestyle of first world countries. Or the slow motioned images of the tribes and their tranquility.  Many contrasts of either the beauty or horror of our world represented through the techniques Fricke successfully utilizes. The landscape overviews of canyons, the scenes of the sun rises and sun sets and all the shots of nature depict how fruitful and lively our world is. Then it proceeds with the bombing and destruction of the mountains, the images of artillery and missiles, and the scene of the house overflowing with the remains of tortured refugees. These examples present the contrasts of the elements of the dead and the living used in Baraka.

This film allows us to peak into a window of reality and question the things that make us human. Baraka means “the breath of life” and through a meditation of colours and sound, we are able to not only see and listen to life, but to feel it. 

Microcosmos (Claude Nuridsany & Marie Pérennou, France, 1996)

Microscosmos: The Grass People is a poetic documentary that sprung to life in 1996 at the hands of Claude Nuridsany and Marie Pérennou. These two talented directors exposed a realm of life that is hidden from the naked eye with their critically acclaimed film. It is a French documentary that was first screened at the Cannes Film Festival before its release in Switzerland. It has many awards to its name. 

With this eighty-minute documentary, we become aware of an entire world buzzing and beating beneath our feet. The film is screaming with life and color. The cameras are zoomed and narrow in on the everyday lives of microscopic organisms. As you watch the bugs and insects mill about, you forget how far up and away you are from them. They climb in search of food and they work to build a home. The insects are a community of individuals that coexist much like the human race. However, the cadence of our lives is far from that of the species observed in this documentary. It doesn’t seem as if anything they do has an ulterior motive. These small beings live in the moment without too much thought to the future, because they don’t have time to live for tomorrow. The slight narration in the beginning of the film shares the startling truth of their shortened life span. For these tiny creatures, an hour in our lives represents a whole day in theirs. A day for us is a season for them. They live an entire life in the time it takes our season to turn. Life is measured differently. The juxtaposition of two different life forms is brought up to create a bridge. The viewer is given the information that he or she needs in order to understand the very small creatures that most deem insignificant. We understand how short their lives are, and we can show compassion for a life so fleeting.

We are given an entirely new perspective. From where we stand, their world does not exist. Minute details that we overlook are monuments for the tiny folk that roam our earth. Everything is amplified for them. There is rainfall in the film and every drop lands with a thud and shakes the ground they travel. From our point of view it is a weak pitter pat. For them, the water splashes and dances around their tiny frames. The scene was edited and the drops fell slowly before crashing to the ground. A rhythmic relation was used to lengthen the actual motion of a steady rainfall. The film editor wanted us to visualize what things look like from down below. He wanted to amplify the impact.  

We rarely pay attention to their world because we ignore detail. It’s easy to become absorbed in your life, sometimes we forget to look around. The insects and the bugs move with such purpose that we must stop and contemplate this undeniable force. They carry out their lives remaining, for the most part, hidden from the human race. As the film unfolds, you can’t help but wonder about everything else you’ve been blind to.

To emphasize the beauty of a budding earth, the film fast tracks the opening of flowers as they bloom. The editors used a temporal relation to give us the full story in a much shorter period of time. We witness them come to life in a mere few seconds, but the real blooming of a flower can take weeks. The film directors wanted to share the experience while still conserving the length of the film. It is a very important dimension of filmmaking as it allows a greater amount of content to be covered in a shorter amount of time.

The narration at the beginning of the movie sets the scene, but the music is our guide throughout. The murmurs of nature can be heard as the music lulls in the background. The viewing is enriched by the strong symphonic melody. The music mirrors the movement of the bugs under the lens and the environment they inhabit. The sound is light when everything is peaceful and calm, but when the two beetles begin their battle the music picks up. The hard beat is dramatic and builds suspense. It compels us to watch, waiting to see who will come out the victor. Bruno Coulais musical score propels the movie forward. The music pulses and sings in tune with the beautiful French meadow where the documentary was filmed.

Microcosmos: The Grass People forces our perspective to hit the ground and we must look from the bottom up. We usually stand at the opposite end and things look a lot different. The film forces us to notice small details as we zoom into a peaceful environment. This documentary is wonderfully simple.

 Our thoughts

The documentaries Baraka and Microscosmos allow us to think about ourselves. Throughout those films, we discover how tiny we are in comparison with the entire world. Also, we discover that we live in a modern and urban jungle and that the only difference with the natural jungle is the technology. Our mentality says that we assure the survival of the planet but actually, we do the opposite, we destroy it and it can assure her survival by herself. The other discovery is that, as a consumer society, we need to produce an industrial quantity of things to meet our needs. Basically those two films act like a wake-up call because we discover that we are in an emergency situation. We over consume to meet our needs, we do things quick to be more productive and the major thing is that we shut our eyes on the rest of the world. We do not take the time to learn about the other tribes or the wildlife that lives with us and also we don’t want to know where the products came from or who did them and in which circumstances, we just want the products (food, clothes, technology, etc.). Finally the most striking picture is that we seem to be in pursuit of happiness. That is really incredible because we have everything and we still are not happy but the tribes have nothing and they seem to be happy.

Those documentaries teach us, about the world, that where ever you are located in the food chain (animals, plants, bugs and humans) you are still tiny on the planet. We (humans) are not the center of the world as we think because actually, we use only 1% out of 29% of living territory. Also, those documentaries make us discover different cultures of different tribes and we discover the lifestyle of certain type of wildlife and bugs. This is really interesting because these scenes open our eyes on different aspects of the world that we are not familiar with. This video shows a tribe that was not discovered until today also, it is illustrates that we are not the center of the universe.

We believe that to transform our vision of the world, the producers of Baraka and Microscosmos, use captivating pictures of nature and wildlife that are present all around us and that we do not get to see every day. For the “world” of our society, the producers use dramatic and shocking pictures that reveal the weaknesses of our society. These scenes are accompanied by music that captivates our feelings and emotions.

In conclusion, we can relate those films to our life and to the society because of two reasons. The first one is that we think we are not interested in the world around us. We are only focusing on ourselves, like the quote me, myself and I. For examples, we know that we share our territory with bugs, plants and animals but we are not searching to know what their lifestyle is and how we can share the space with them. Also, we are more afraid of humans who are different from us then our desire to learn about their culture. The second reason is that society including our-self consumes too much then what our real needs are. For example, material things, food, clothes, etc.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the viewing and the analyse of the movie Baraka and Microcosmos really shown what is the impact of the editing on the documentary films. Also, the juxtaposition of the images transport us to a kind of secret world because, in the case of the two movies that we analyse, we did not have the chance to explore this side of the world really often. Finally, those documentaries make us think about the world where we live and also about our negative habits that we have.