"Our task must be to free ourselves... by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in all its beauty."

The movie Baraka teaches a lesson of compassion, unity, and empathy for all humanity normally only achieved by the finest of World Literature. It is rare that a film can present such a message in a meaningful way, as the deepest most big box office movies normally get is about to the level of intellectual stimulation achieved by Donnie Darko or Memento. In this way Baraka becomes more of an item of World Literature than one of the cinema. Its strong images provoke compassion and bring revelation for all aspects of our society, from the poverty and yet intimacy with the earth achieved by many still undeveloped cultures from Australia to sub-saharan Africa. It is indeed moving to witness this connection still very much alive in these cultures while almost the entirety of the rest of the world has left that far behind.
A second very moving and meaningful image was the people moving through the subway, all sped up. I actually disagree with Brussat's assertion that those images were included with the purpose of merely showing the value of only efficiency and compulsion in society, pushing compassion to the side. I would say that those images, interspersed with images of small chicks being tumbled through machines, being catalogued and handicapped and shuttled into incredibly confined spaces to work tirelessly for some corporation, providing their eggs and meat for people to eat, were meant to be drawn a parallel to the chicks. The images are meant to show how the people ferrying through the turns and doors and checkpoints and turnstiles of the subway system are identical to the chicks, the only difference is that the people maintain the illusion that they are doing it of their own free will. Powerful message.