Koyaanisqatsi

source: Koyaanisqatsi

I seem to be somewhat out of the norm here, but gotta say this was long, boring, and a little pretentious. A few nice images, not nearly enough intelligent stuff to fill the time. What can one say? Humans affect the environment. Choose some nice images of unspoiled environment. Intersperse some ugly images of human wastelands. Cut with some scenes of interesting people and urban scenes that provoke mixed responses. Color and composition competent but not special. Mix with droning Philip Glass music for Native American voice. That's all it is: no plot, no commentary, just images and chant. Not so bad that I did not watch it to the end. But at the end, not particularily memorable or influential. Few persistent images. Nothing that could not be done in half the time. Maybe I made the mistake of not chilling out and just drifting with it, or something. 4/10.

... doing what they do best, scarring the planet with concrete, raping its natural resources, pollution, destruction and chaos. The saddest part of this fascinating and visually stimulating documentary is that we continue, exponentially, doing what we're good at. Which is fine if you're alive today (not really) but future generations may have to rediscover some ancient hunting and gathering techniques to survive - most probably hunting themselves as there'll be nothing else worth gathering - assuming we are.

I first went to see this film almost by accident. Some friends were going, & it happened that Philip Glass was due to be in the cinema for an after-screening interview. I wasn't a huge fan of Philip Glass, I'd never heard of Koyaanisqatsi or Godfrey Reggio: but what the hell, I went along, expecting some sort of nicely-filmed but vaguely-boring worthy documentary. An hour & a half later, I was - and I'm having to try very hard to find adjectives here - in fact I'm failing. It was The-Thing-That-You-Can't-Even-Tell-Someone-What-It-Is. Completely transfixed, transported, for 90 minutes of my life. This film has no dialogue. It has no actors, apart from everyone & everything that Ron Fricke's camera touches. It has no plot, apart from just the simple, complex, unfolding story of the world. The truth is, of all the films that people feel have really made an impact on their lives - and you only need to read through this lengthy thread to see how many of those people there are - this is one of the hardest to communicate to someone who hasn't actually seen it. You can compare it, perhaps, to things they might have seen - but there aren't that many to compare to. It has a kind of poetry on a whole different level from, for example, Man with a Movie Camera. The only things that spring to mind for me are Orphee or Last Year at Marienbad, but these are completely different kinds of movie, and even people who don't like them might be totally taken apart by Koyaanisqatsi. Sure you could - rightly - use phrases like "breathtaking cinematography" or "unforgettable images". You could praise the music (which really opened my ears to Philip Glass). You could point out, as many have done, how the film made you look again at the world, & at your own place in it. Or you could try to relay its "environmental" message - and there are people, especially those who take any implied criticism of our species' waste and cruelty as a kind of personal insult, who will not like that message. But none of these things would come close to capturing what makes this film so special. Like trying to explain "red" to someone who's never seen colours. You have to experience it. If possible in a cinema, sitting right down at the front, completely immersed in the screen and its images. I know I'll never forget the first time I saw it. You might not either.

There are much better films out there that function as meditations on the flow of time and people and things. Some have plots, some mere hints of plots, and others none at all. The experience of viewing these films is akin to looking at a painting or contemplating the subtle changes in nature. Unfortunately, Koyaanisqatsi just does not quite make it. In places where it should allow the natural (and accidental) beauty of a subject to come through, it instead uses pointed repetition to preach a one-dimensional message. If it encounters an interesting subject it lingers on far too long. Please note that I have a lot of patience with meditative art, being a longtime fan of Wim Wenders, the composer Morton Feldman, and the painter Robert Ryman. I can handle art that explores deeper and deeper, examining the hidden and bringing to light details that no one ever has seen, often including the artist (see John Cage's works on the process of art as a process of exploration for both audience and author). But Koyaanisqatsi finds a scene of moderate interest and hammers on it until there is nothing left to see in it, and KEEPS ON GOING. So much for subtle variation. Overall, Koyaanisqatsi comes across as a spoof of minimalist excess. It's like the minimalist painting that REALLY IS just a white canvas. This mind-numbing effect is reinforced by the relentless music of neo-banalist Phil Glass. Meaningless harmonic structures, crudely stitched together, repeating over and over, proclaiming the composer's incompetence at every pseudo-cadence. This is maybe a good movie for pot-head hippies or maybe for teenagers trying to find some meaning in the many superficial contradictions in the world. Perhaps it can be a way to wean American youth away from too much Chuck Norris. But maybe it really isn't any better for them than Chuck Norris.

An unbearably tedious exercise in film-making, made even duller by a music score by "minimalst" dreckmeister Philip Glass. You might be interested to learn that the title is an actual Hopi Indian word meaning "life out of balance." Some other actual Hopi words for actual Hopi concepts are: Franksinatrasqaatsi -- life lived well not for its own sake but as a form of revenge. Nosferatusqaatsi -- life lived mainly at night, characterized by an avoidance of garlic, crucifixes and silver bullets. Middlebrowsqaatsi -- life lived so as to appear clever and hip to others who are trying to appear clever and hip to you, largely by convincing yourselves and each other that you love pretentious crap like this movie.

Spoilers herein. I make a practice of bending hard into a filmmaker's world. Nothing has ever been too pretentious for me. I find something good in even the most poorly conceived projects. I'm inclined to pure art. I play my Kronos Quartet CDs over and over. That said, this film breaks my patience. Sure, it has quite a few massively beautiful images. But they are of the type you find on inspirational posters. There's no presence. All the life is drained out of this and what we end up with is Brian Eno for the eyes. Space music to watch. Soft, soft softly. Now I suppose you can create some romantic anti-myth about the purity of nature among all these synthesizers and helicopter shots. I suppose you can create a myth about a mystical tribe of Indians who were attuned to nature before `technology' (read: ideas and art) came along. In those splendid days all was in balance. Soft, soft. I think I understand what this tries, and its superficially is what bothers me. If you are serious about spiritual vision, and ready to leave this coffee table movie, try `The Falls' which exploits no aboriginals, has a far deeper minimalist composer (Nyman) worries about technology and nature in a way that sticks, and uses the camera to give rather than take life. Quite long and meditative. `Man With a Movie Camera' is even less accessible narratively but far, far more cinematically poetic than this. Trivia: I think I know the Air Force pilot dwelled upon about midway through. He's actually a gentle, quite spiritual man who would never wear his inner peace on his sleeve like Reggio does in the DVD extras. Ted's evaluation: 2 of 4 -- Has some interesting elements.

One of the most pretentious, manipulative pieces of dreck I've ever seen. The filmmakers simply place various images in a certain order, which has a pretty compelling overall effect--and unlike (apparently) everyone else, I don't think that's a good thing. What this movie is good for, potentially, is as an example of how well you can present an argument, and manipulate/distort ideas, without using words. It should also make apparent the difficulty that lies in trying to counter such tacit arguments (which is where the danger is, in my opinion). As such, it might be worth watching in a film theory/crit class, or in a rhetoric class. But outside such spaces, I wouldn't subject anyone to it.

This is a critics' favorite which usually means it's vastly overrated. That's the case here, too. That doesn't mean it's not worth seeing - it is worth a look - but it's probably not worth owning. The film is a non-narrative piece showing the comparison of peaceful, tranquil scenes from mountains and other earthly sites and then comparing them to the huge concrete buildings man has built in cities along with the busy lifestyle of modern-day human beings. Scenes of mass transportation and crowded streets are shown in fast-forward time, audible sounds done the same. It emphasizes the rush-rush- rush of everything in modern-day life. That "out of balance" message was interesting to watch but grows tiresome quickly. The filmmakers point could have been made in half the time, not an hour-and-a-half of the same message with many scenes drawn out way too long.

KOYAANISQATSI remains a profound statement over twenty years after its original release. the point then is the point now. one of the great things about this film is that while the intrusion of man is initially presented as profane and abhorrent, ultimately there is found a symmetry to the human experience that is as organic as anything found in the `natural' world. i used to be tempted to perceive humans as the only species on the plant that didn't fit, that threw everything out of balance, as it were. but over time it has become apparent that even the blight of man on earth is a naturally occurring phenomenon. the evolution of life is the destruction of life. the circle is unbroken.