Get all your news in one place.
100’s of premium titles.
One app.
Start reading
The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Entertainment
Wendy Ide

Samsara review – unlike anything else you will experience in the cinema

Samsara.
‘Remarkable immersive voyage’: Samsara. Photograph: © Sr&Sra

All great cinema is a journey of sorts, but there comes a point when it feels as though film-makers are treading the same well-worn paths. Not so with Spanish director Lois Patiño’s remarkable immersive voyage Samsara (the title refers to the Buddhist cycle of deaths and rebirths): part film, part guided meditation, it’s unlike anything else you can experience in the cinema.

The film starts in Laos, where a Buddhist boy is reading to an elderly woman, Mon (Simone Milavanh), from the Bardo Thödol, a guide to the journey between death and reincarnation. When Mon dies, a message on screen invites us to close our eyes in order to accompany her on her journey to her next life, as a young goat born on the coast of the island of Zanzibar. This 15-minute segment plays out to a textured tapestry of sound woven from the natural world; flickering, rippling colours and strobing light pulses on the screen – viewed through closed eyelids – create a kind of lightshow in the mind’s eye. There’s a distant kinship perhaps, in the theme of cycles of life, with Michelangelo Frammartino’s documentary Le Quattro Volte. But Samsara is a strikingly original and profound artwork. See it (and hear it) in a cinema, if at all possible.

Watch a trailer for Samsara.
Sign up to read this article
Read news from 100’s of titles, curated specifically for you.
Already a member? Sign in here
Related Stories
Top stories on inkl right now
One subscription that gives you access to news from hundreds of sites
Already a member? Sign in here
Our Picks
Fourteen days free
Download the app
One app. One membership.
100+ trusted global sources.