Samsara (2011 Film) - Critical Reception

Critical Reception

Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a score of 76% based on reviews from 71 critics, and reports a rating average of 6.9 out of 10. It reports the critics' consensus, "It's a tad heavy-handed in its message, but Samsara's overwhelmingly beautiful visuals more than compensate for any narrative flaws." At Metacritic, which assigns a weighted average score out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the film received an average score of 64% based on 23 reviews. Metacritic reports that the score reflects "generally favorable reviews".

Kenneth Turan, reviewing for the Los Angeles Times, called Samsara "as frustrating as it is beautiful". Turan expressed frustration that the filmmakers did not name the more obscure locations, such as the Cebu Provincial Detention and Rehabilitation Center in the Philippines. The critic also took issue with some of the film's "disconcerting" images. Turan concluded, "Some of the connections made are too obvious, like following images of ammunition with a portrait of a severely wounded veteran, while others are completely elusive. Shots of the devastation Katrina left behind in New Orleans are beautifully spooky, but does it say anything useful to follow that with images of Versailles? The makers of 'Samsara' want to free our minds, but their technique makes us their prisoners more often than not."

In the Chicago Sun-Times, Roger Ebert extolled Samsara for providing "an uplifting experience" through its use "of powerful images, most magnificent, some shocking, all photographed with great care in the highest possible HD resolution". Ebert reflected on the film's strength in capturing images of what may eventually be lost to us and noted that there were also images that could reflect the reason for these losses. Katie Walsh, writing for indieWire's The Playlist, applauded Samsara's "technical achievements" and noted that the film used the "intellectual montage" technique. Walsh said the film was similar to Man with a Movie Camera but took "the idea to new global and spiritual heights". She said of the film's entirety, "While one can discuss the technical prowess of these shocking and beautiful images, it doesn't do justice to the spiritual cinematic power of this work."