Word: battuta
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...Maldives, tourists sigh about the luxury resorts and sun-dappled beaches to which they are bound. From above, the country's coral-fringed lagoons in the Indian Ocean look computer-generated: arrayed in turquoise pods, they stretch over an azure expanse that would span from Rome to Budapest. Ibn Battuta, the 14th century Arab explorer, hailed the archipelago as "one of the wonders of the world." Ever since, the Maldives has enchanted shipwrecked sailors, Hollywood celebrities and Russian oligarchs fortunate enough to wash up by its shores. Yet beneath this outsiders' vision of paradise lurks a more troubled reality...
...clash of civilizations”. It will also have earned the sponsorship of the National Geographic. Indeed, given all the attention lavished on the magnificent photography, the deserts, the ancient cities, the caravans, (and even bandits) it is a weakness of the film that the remarkable story of Ibn Battuta is not more developed...
...emphasizing the inclusion of unprecedented footage of the modern Hajj, and invoking National Geographic as its chief patron—there is little about the film that aspires to an insightful portrayal of actual events. Instead, viewers are subjected to skeletal dramatic summary of the first voyage of Ibn Battuta, a Berber from 12th-century Tangiers, whose journal chronicles a lifetime of travel the scale of which outstrips the expeditions of Marco Polo three times over. Neibaur’s film covers Ibn’s departure from Tangiers, his travels across Africa and the Middle East, and his arrival...
...beamed ceiling. As the show opens on the circle of earth below, a gypsy troupe sleeps as their horses gather around a waterfall. It is the morning of a great wedding feast. Bartabas, who co-founded the equestrian theater Zingaro (Italian for gypsy) in 1984, has a new show, Battuta (beat or rhythm in Romany), which also features bears, geese, dogs and acrobatics galore. But this is no circus act-it's a celebration of the migratory tradition, and of the cycle of life modern society seems to have forgotten. Resplendent brides, angry fathers, jealous rivals and belly dancers race...
...Battuta offers feasts and romance, weddings and funerals, imbuing them with the absurdity and surrealism of dreams. As the furious crescendo finally tapers and night falls, a violin draws a melancholic tune while the caravan beds down, their horses shifting in the darkness. After the show you won't want to leave, and may sit down and order a feast of your own in the velvet-curtained dining pavilion. Or you may linger around the bonfire outside the theater sipping a mint tea or spiced wine, trying to prolong your dreamlike state until, grudgingly, you catch the last metro back...