A documentary about life and death in Benares, India. I saw this movie at a small theatre in Seattle almost ten years ago; I don't believe it's been through town since.
The movie begins with sunrise and ends with sunset. There is no English dialog or voice-over in the film; everything is visual. The subject matter, Benares itself, is remarkable, shocking and dirty and beautiful: funeral processions, kite-flying children, thousands of marigolds, fighting dogs, it goes on. Watching the film - and this I loved - was like watching a story unfold. Themes would develop and be examined in-depth, and when enough was said, a new theme would take its place: when my eyes wandered from street level and started noticing the brilliantly colored kites in the sky, Gardner shifted his focus to the children playing in the steady wind by the river, and I saw where the kites came from. After so many funeral processions pass, you become curious about the thousands of marigolds covering the bodies; quickly, you're taken to the rolling marigold farms.
Watching the film is like seeing tales of a distant and strange culture being told from behind sound-proof glass, tales which fascinate and even entertain. I hope I have a chance to see it again.