Dialectical Image: Aura in Poetic Documentaries-A Case Study of Baraka

Walter Benjamin has argued that mechanical reproduction deprives artworks of their Aura. However, in view of the dramatic change in the status and popularity of images, it is necessary to re-examine this issue. Georges Didi-Huberman adopts Aura theory to interpret works of art such as Minimalism, taking double distance and double vision as the two basic conditions for constructing Aura. The film Baraka uses unfamiliar images, fragmentary editing, and weakened narrative to distance the images from the audience and completes the subject-object transformation with the help of gaze, which successfully induces the audience’s unconscious memory. Thus, the works regain its immediacy and originality, revealing its Aura. Through this guided meditation, the director tries to explain to the audience the ultimate of the universe. However, the commodification and Western ideology have diminished its Aura, forming a paradox of the image.