no Baraka was not superior.
this was the greatest concept+execution.
final scene is absolutely flawless.
To me this is the best for two reasons (except for the obvious reason that it's great):
1. Everything you witness takes place before the year 1983. It's an historical document of a different, and very fascinating, era (culture, art, clothes, cars, politics, everything). From the mid 70s to 1982.
2. The score.
As far as I know, this was the first movie of its kind. I still remember seeing it in the theater when it came out. It did make a huge impression.
It made me realize that in many ways the Native American Indians had some of the most amazing ways of looking at the world and life. From the Iroquois ideas of democracy, real democracy, to the Hopi ideas of the universe and humanity.
Wikipedia:
According to Hopi Dictionary: Hopìikwa Lavàytutuveni, the Hopi word koyaanisqatsi (Hopi pronunciation: [kojɑːnisˈkɑtsi])[29] is defined as "life of moral corruption and turmoil" or "life out of balance".[30] The prefix koyaanis– means "corrupted" or "chaotic", and the word qatsi means "life" or "existence",[31] literally translating koyaanisqatsi as "chaotic life".[30] The film also defines the word as "crazy life", "life out of balance, "life in turmoil", "life disintegrating", and "a state of life that calls for another way of living."[32]I read a book recently which I considered as close as possible to a book version of the ideas in this movie ... "The End of the Megamachine" by Fabian Scheidler. Of course it was words and ideas, but the vantage point of looking at what we have done in words and ideas created the same vivid picture.
In the score by Philip Glass, the word "Koyaanisqatsi" is chanted at the beginning and end of the film in an "otherworldly"[33] dark, sepulchral basso profondo by singer Albert de Ruiter over a solemn, four-bar organ-passacaglia bassline. Three Hopi prophecies sung by a choral ensemble during the latter part of the "Prophecies" movement are translated just prior to the end credits:
"If we dig precious things from the land, we will invite disaster."
"Near the day of Purification, there will be cobwebs spun back and forth in the sky."
"A container of ashes might one day be thrown from the sky, which could burn the land and boil the oceans."