Song of Ceylon Basil Wright, 1934

 A lyrical ethnographic documentary film depicting the cultural and religious customs of the Sinhalese of Sri Lanka.  Originally sent to shoot footage for the Ceylon Tea Propaganda Board, Basil Wright later edited the footage into a poetic film sewn together with beautiful images and sequences exploring the deep spirituality of Ceylonese people.  Wright contrasts a simplicity and complacency with life,  with the imposition of the West and it's ways of commerce.  In essence contrasting the a simple way of life with the lifelessness of western commerce.    The film is divided into four parts, separated with title card as if introducing the movements of a symphony:  "The Buddha," "The Virgin Island," "Voices of Commerce," and the "Apparel of the Gods,"  As a point well made, Wright returns us to the way of life of the Ceylonese without the West in the last 1/4 of the film.
    
In the first "movement" I'm particularly drawn to the scene of the bells ringing.  Normally I don't like bells ringing in movies (just a personal thing).  That sound, high-pitched, tinny and pervasive I'd rather do without.  However, Wright juxtaposes this sound with beauty and as the camera leaves the bells and takes us on a journey suggesting we are riding the sound waves, over the mountain tops, and floating with the clouds, and the birds.  A metaphor for the beauty of a life lived long before the British came. 
    
The criticism of a poetic mode of documentary is it's lack of specificity and it's overly abstractness.  For me, this is precisely what makes this film work.  Poetic documentary of the 1920's reassembled fragments of the world poetically.  Wright, along with John Grierson, recognizes this and assembles his film into a symphony of beauty, and pointedness.