#17: Reaction to film

Baraka is one of a few documentaries I've seen over the past ten years. In my opinion, despite it's non-verbal, the film reflects different aspects of human life around the world and the relationship between human beings and nature through different lens, from the highly developed countries to the third world, from the purity of nature to the destruction humans cause to the environment.

Among all scenes of the movies, what impressed me a lot is the scene of poor people working in a garbage site. Most of them are women and kids with a claw in their hands searching for something useful from what people toss away. This is not the first time I've seen scene like this because in Vietnam, poor kids also have to do the same thing. What impressed me is that the scene was so realistic and detailed, and it made me think about the contrast between the developed countries and the third world. It's like two different worlds. While in a country, rich kids go to private school on expensive cars, wear luxury clothes and spend leisure time on their favorite activities; in another country, poor kids wearing tattered and dirty clothes spend the whole day working with their family in a polluted environment to feed their mouth. Even in the developed countries, in contrast to the busy and modern life is the image of homeless people sleep under the bridge, of orphaned kids taking care of themselves. This made me wonder if the gap between the two worlds is increasing.

It's impossible to reduce this gap, as it is the way a society operates. Whenever money exists, there will be social gap. However, I hope that there will be actions to console what the poor people in the third world have to face everyday.

I read Tara and Vivian's posts.