This might be my
favourite movie of all
time. You haven't really seen it until you've seen it on
the big screen, with big
sound. I
rented it one time to show my
parents, and it wasn't anywhere near as cool. Luckily, there is a wonderful second-run
movie theatre where I live which plays it every couple months or so.
Since the content of the film is so diverse, and since it so wonderfully depicts the beautiful alongside the ugly, I do not see it as any kind of judgement about how humanity should live. The style is exposing, yet unassuming; the images of people worshipping religious icons, for instance, (such as the women kissing the silver lock) can mean different things to different people. Even when showing the most beautiful or the most terrible images, the film maintains a detached objectivism, in no small part due to its lack of commentary. There are definite parallels made throughout the film which illustrate different concepts, but I always see these as questions posed to the audience as opposed to Ron Fricke telling the audience the "answer". Indeed, no audience member watches the movie without asking themselves a myriad of questions.
When I see Baraka, I see a brilliant presentation of what humanity does, through how we interact with our environment, each other, and ourselves. In a more general sense, I see it as what evolution does, or what life does, in all its splendor and diversity. It really puts things into perspective. Look at all this terror, this beauty, this stupidity, this brilliance: it all just goes on and on and on.
I see Baraka to be amazed.