Awaken 2021 plus#

On these surface-level merits, I find enough to admire, but there’s always a chance the mind will make its own meaning out of what’s shown. In some scenes, it aims to be uplifting and motivational. Take it in as an audio-visual meditation experience, and I found it hypnotic, tranquil, and pleasant. Joseph Trapanese’s score is mesmerizing and sensuous, and it goes a long way to adding a more emotional tone to the imagery.

If the intent is on humanity, technology, nature, or other broad themes, the scenes aren’t really pointed enough to elicit deep thoughts.Īs a fan of these types of films, however, I give this one much credit for the sheer quality of its photography, which is consistently beautiful to behold. The issue is further convoluted since the film repeats all its key shots towards the end, serving as a coda before the credits. Alas, this film seems to have picked totally random scenes with no clear connective tissue. Why watch scenes of dancers, torch girls, fishermen, and elephants for 74 minutes? It’s one thing to appreciate the world’s unassuming beauty, but it’s another to select specific images and string them together. The problem is, Awaken probably needs a point since so they staged many shots with models doing very specific actions. The question remains, of course, what is the point? I really want to say it’s fine to not have a point, as I felt with TimeScapes. Liv Tyler lends her voice to provide a few words of poetry (although it remains rather vague). Holy crap, this might be one of the most stunning films I’ve laid eyes on. Towards the middle, there’s a colorful festival with fantastic costumes, dances, and flying candle-lit lanterns. Trees and rocks beneath moving stars, so vividly captured that you can clearly see the Milky Way. A swimming elephant, shot from underneath. There’s a prolonged shot of a dolphin leaping out of the sea in slow motion.

Awaken 2021 plus#

All of that in smooth slow-motion, plus time-lapsed shots of mountains, cities, oceans, and clouds.

A group of women with torches and wreaths moving through a forest. This includes a ballerina dancing on a prairie.

Awaken is more of the same, but it expands the scope to include many scenes with exotic-looking people. I appreciated that film precisely because it was devoid of theme or meaning-the stunning landscapes alone had me enamored. A film that promises to “awaken” your spirit.Īs I noted with TimeScapes, I believe there is merit in art for art’s sake. For a five-year period, Löwe embarked on a new project to piece together a new stirring experience with footage from around the world (shot in over 35 different countries). Tom Löwe (formerly the cinematographer that shot Visitors, with some experience behind Terrence Malick’s later works) attempted to create a stirring experience with a short piece called TimeScapes, stitched together from scenes shot all around the American Southwest. It takes a sophisticated and artful approach for films like Koyaanisqatsi, Samsara, and Baraka to stir the soul-these films succeed because of their photographic prowess and a firm thematic direction. Few films exist intending to awaken the mind and the senses.