Spectacular sights, but where are they?

PHOTOGRAPHER: Los Angeles Times

“Samsara” is as frustrating as it is beautiful, which is saying a lot because this is a film laced with exquisite images.

Director and cinematographer Ron Fricke and his producer and co-editor Mark Magidson dragged their cumbersome 65-millimeter cameras to some of the remotest areas of the world, hitting 100 locations in 25 countries over a five-year period.

In one instance, they spent four hours hiking in and out of a Native American ruin in Arizona called Betatakin to film what turned out to be about eight seconds of screen time.

Breathtaking views

The results, as in the previous films Fricke has photographed, including “Baraka,” “Chronos” and “Koyaanisqatsi,” can take your breath away. There are aerial shots of the temple complex at Pagan in Myanmar, views of an elaborate sand painting being created at a Tibetan monastery in Ladakh in India, even some time-lapse photography of the venerable Los Angeles freeways that is stunning.

‘Samsara’

DIRECTED BY: Ron Fricke

RATED: PG-13 GRADE: B-

RUNNING TIME: 102 minutes

“Samsara” is apparently a Sanskrit word referring to what the film’s press material calls “the ever turning wheel of life,” the cycle of birth, death and rebirth that is central to many Asian religions.

The idea behind this film, as with the others Fricke has photographed, is to offer what he calls a guided meditation that encourages you to contemplate what a strange and beautiful place the world actually is.

In a simpler time, movies like this were called head trips, and though they can still function that way if you are so inclined, there are several factors that militate against complete enjoyment.

Unless you are stoned when you go to see “Samsara,” those possessing ordinary human curiosity are likely going to want to know what it is they are looking at. This is a pleasure, however, that the film tries its best to deny you.

Operating on the principle that the image is all that matters, “Samsara” refuses to let us know what we are seeing. Yes, the closing credits function as a kind of square-up reel, listing all the locations, but the names go by too fast and come too late to offer any real help.

Some places, like Burma’s Pagan or Jordan’s Petra or the ancient Kaaba in Mecca, are so familiar we know them immediately, and we take the same kind of pleasure in their presence as we would at glimpsing a friendly face at a glamorous cocktail party where we’re not sure we belong.

Other places are equally fascinating, but to find out where they are you have to do research on the film’s website, where you discover, with the help of the Internet, that the exploding volcano visible in the opening minutes is in Kilauea, Hawaii, and those amazing oversize stone heads are remains of a 1st century BC tomb located in Mt. Nemrut National Park in Adiyaman, Turkey. The filmmakers might say that knowing this is immaterial, but then they already know, don’t they?