Livestream: Human casualty of an industrial machinery

Somewhere towards the middle of the documentary Samsara, there is an eye-popping sequence that exhibits the current world’s unending thirst for firepower, in all its glory.

The military machinery is seen from within the factories that manufacture guns – of all kinds, shapes, sizes and discharges. Alongside these guns, we are also witness to the creation of bullets, by the thousands, and we see the shotguns being brandished by everyone from military personnel to amateur hunters and even an American family – father, son and daughter, proudly holding onto their weapons of choice. Cut to a scene later, and in an undisclosed town in South America, we are drawn headlong into the final resting place of many of the town’s young fallen angels. Coffin makers in this town pride themselves in supplying caskets designed in the likeness of assault rifles, machine guns and even revolvers. Tragically, and ironically, victims of gun violence are wrapped in sheets of satin and lowered into ground in coffins resembling the contraptions which claimed their lives. It’s an underlying theme of coming full circle that resonates across the film. 

Ron Fricke’s award-winning creation is one of those documentaries that one would struggle with classifying under a certain genre. It calls into question everything that man takes for granted on the planet – feasting on factory farmed animals, life-sized love dolls, creating junkyards and favelas to rival neighbouring super cities, populating overtly crowded penitentiaries that yet again point to failed economies and income inequalities. 

And of course, among all these sights and sounds indicative of man’s industrious conquest of the world, there lies in stark relief, the untouched beauty of nature and landmass, attempting to survive in a world, that may not have a place for them.