Manakamana

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Audience Member The critics must have been really smoking *something* if they rate this movie as a 91%. Fools often admire what they don't understand especially in today's world where every piece of bullshit filmmaking is touted as "art". Rated 1/5 Stars •  Rated 1 out of 5 stars 02/26/23 Full Review Audience Member Manakamana is a Hindu temple in Nepal that people visit and make offerings or sacrifices. There's a cable car that takes people up to the temple. For the first half of this documentary, people take the cable car up to the temple. In the second half, people take the cable car down. That is quite literally all that happens. People are filmed in real time for the 10 minutes it takes to ride the car. Sometimes they talk to each other. Sometimes they don't. In one case, they are a bunch of goats (really). They don't seem to be aware that they are on camera. This film is riveting. Seriously. I loved it. Rated 4/5 Stars •  Rated 4 out of 5 stars 02/01/23 Full Review Audience Member A film about car lift rides on the way up to the known temple. It's really one of the most simple films to do. Just place a camera in a car lift, capture the entire ride and wait for a new ride. We get talking along the third ride, and since I have learned that the most noisy tower is indicating that they are almost there I guess that ride number three is nearly done too. Inspirational and very sedative film. A beautiful documentary but first of all a geniously simple documentary. We get old people, younger people. Some silent, some talkative. My favorite "rides" are the rock dudes with cameras and a kitten and the ice-cream eaters was my favorite, but the ride with the dudes playing those kick ass instruments was the most magical one. 7.5 out of 10 popped ears. Rated 3.5/5 Stars •  Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars 01/17/23 Full Review Audience Member What an incredible film. I should say this at the outset: the biggest pitfall is to judge this film with Hollywood (or even Western) aesthetics in mind. Calling this film "boring" is the symptom of a Michael Bay disease. Calling it "boring" presupposes that the film exists to entertain...which it certainly does not. When criticizing the film, we should pretend the filmmakers weren't even there. In fact, we really get the sense that there is no camera - you see what any other passenger would see. The fact that you don't see the Manakamana temple makes it all that more mysterious. What we do get from the film are pilgrims in the 21st century visiting a 17th century temple which represents an ancient religion. This is not a film that depends on whether or not the viewer "likes" it or not. What we see are many seemingly different passengers; however, they are, in a way, all made the same by climbing the hills in the cable car. We never see the temple. Westerners wouldn't believe there is a goddess there. But how can we know she isn't there? Rated 5/5 Stars •  Rated 5 out of 5 stars 02/16/23 Full Review Audience Member An interesting variety of passengers but ultimately not worth the two hour investment. Rated 1/5 Stars •  Rated 1 out of 5 stars 02/20/23 Full Review Audience Member Transcendence in mundanity. Rated 3/5 Stars •  Rated 3 out of 5 stars 02/24/23 Full Review Read all reviews

Manakamana

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