Awaken

As a devoted follower of Reggio's work, I have rewatched his latest film countless times, yet I find myself struggling to fully embrace it. The final quarter of the documentary is undoubtedly compelling, but it's also somewhat vexing. The film places an excessive amount of emphasis on youth and women, neither of which have any real bearing on the film's central theme. In contrast, Reggio's earlier masterpiece, Koyaanisqatsi, was more impactful because it focused on the essence of what truly matters. To put it bluntly, this particular work is a complete dud.

How can anybody give this movie any other review than 10 or maybe 9? The low score can only be explained by wrong expectations, maybe it was shown somewhere where people were expecting to see a normal movie. This is my favorite genre of art and it is quite rare to see it made in to a spectacle like this. It is awe inspiring, soul clensing, meditative and most of all hopefully spiritual for all mankind. It's like a religious experience, and each viewing is an event, a spiritual orgasm. Only Ron Fricke has previously accomplished this sort of monumental epics, and now we have another. I love you Tom Lowe you are a god of sense and wonder. Please do not be discouraged by the IMDb rating, you have a following. Please. Give us more wonder, our hearts are famished!

Was like from another world. I can't find enough words to describe its atmosphere. Wish could have seen it at the cinema.

This does contain a substantial amount of incredibly beautifully shot time-lapse footage and that is clearly the strongest aspect of the production. Unfortunately it does also feel derivative and superficial, at times even fake compared to some of the classics in this genre like Koyaanisqatsi and Baraka that it is clearly influenced by. It feels a bit like it is half way between those and Ashes and Snow to me. The parts portraying European cultures are clearly just role-play taking us at least a hundred years back.

One can't help but notice the almost total absence of older and the strong focus on young women. Life on earth ends up being portrayed as more of an endless party instead of the social commentary you get in something like Le Syndrome du Titanic or the spiritual-naturistic message of Samsara that you see the remnants of in the way which this imitates Fricke's works. On the audio side the soundtrack is not bad but not at the level of Philip Glass or Michael Stearns while (thankfully very limited) narration offered by Liv Tyler is even more out of place here than in Terence Malick's Voyage of Time. The sound effects should have been left out.

Overall I still enjoyed the beauty of it and I always love seeing new entries in this genre. My review's tone probably seems really harsh considering that but that is just due to the standard set by Ron Fricke and others.

Meditative piece, relaxing, calming, inspiring, full of wonderful visuals. Makes you appreciate our Earth and the diversity all around more. I enjoyed watching this unique work and would like to see more stuff like this being made! I am giving it 10 stars because there was nothing bad about it.

P. S. Don't expect action, drama or any specific storyline. It is not a typical Hollywood movie.