Koyaanisqatsi First-time filmmaker Godfrey Reggio's experimental documentary from 1983--shot mostly in the desert Southwest and New York City on a tiny budget with no script, then attracting the support of Francis Ford Coppola and George Lucas and enlisting the indispensable musical contribution of Philip Glass--delighted college students on the midnight circuit and fans of minimalism for many years. Meanwhile, its techniques, merging cinematographer Ron Fricke's time-lapse shots (alternately peripatetic and hyperspeed) with Glass's reiterative music (from the meditative to the orgiastic)--as well as its ecology-minded imagery--crept into the consciousness of popular culture. The influence of Koyaanisqatsi, or "life out of balance," has by now become unmistakable in television advertisements, music videos, and, of course, similar movies such as Fricke's own Chronos and Craig McCourry's Apogee. Reggio shot a sequel, Powaqqatsi (1988), and completed the trilogy with Naqoyqatsi (2002). Koyaanisqatsi provides the uninitiated the chance to see where it all started--along with an intense audiovisual rush.
Powaqqatsi Powaqqatsi (1988), or "life in transformation," is the second part of a trilogy of experimental documentaries whose titles derive from Hopi compound nouns. The now legendary Koyaanisqatsi (1983), or "life out of balance," was the first. Naqoyqatsi (2002), or "life in war," was the third. Powaqqatsi finds director Godfrey Reggio somewhat more directly polemical than before, and his major collaborator, the composer Philip Glass, stretching to embrace world music. Reggio reuses techniques familiar from the previous film (slow motion, time-lapse, superposition) to dramatize the effects of the so-called First World on the Third: displacement, pollution, alienation. But he spends as much time beautifully depicting what various cultures have lost--cooperative living, a sense of joy in labor, and religious values--as he does confronting viewers with trains, airliners, coal cars, and loneliness. What had been a more or less peaceful, slow-moving, spiritually fulfilling rural existence for these "silent" people (all we hear is music and sound effects) becomes a crowded, suffocating, accelerating industrial urban hell, from Peru to Pakistan. Reggio frames Powaqqatsi with a telling image: the Serra Pelada gold mines, where thousands of men, their clothes and skin imbued with the earth they're moving, carry wet bags up steep slopes in a Sisyphean effort to provide wealth for their employers. While Glass juxtaposes his strangely joyful music, which includes the voices of South American children, a number of these men carry one of their exhausted comrades out of the pit, his head back and arms outstretched--one more sacrifice to Caesar. Nevertheless, Reggio, a former member of the Christian Brothers, seems to maintain hope for renewal. --Robert Burns Neveldine
Product Reviews
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Average rating: 4.6
A Masterpiece
Rating
March 30, 2004
The only shortcoming of the masterpiece epic "Koyaanisqatsi" on DVD is technical: the tape-to-DVD transfer is quite noisy: it's evident in some shots and colors where the shimmering "noise" detracts slightly from the visuals. Nevertheless this is a groundbreaking film, and seeing it 21 years after its cinematic release, yah it blows me (and anyone else who sees it)away.
So hey GR howzaboot a complete remastering, on par with the excellent soundtrack remaster? This film deserves nothing less. One of the top 5 films of all time.
Yes, get the 2- pack!
Rating
March 5, 2004
The first film, "Koyaanisqatsi," is superior, but the second film, "Powaqqatsi," has many visually stimulating moments as well. "Koyaanisqatsi" was a landmark film when it was first released, using time-lapse photography and other trick-cinematography to show the world in a new way. There are many provocative moments, my personal favorites being shots of landscapes and night-time city-scapes accelerated. The final shot of a rocket exploding is simply visceral to the point of being haunting. I can still see the swirling, fiery image days afterward. Now, for the second film. "Powaqqatsi" has some amazing shots, as well, but it lacks the first film's unique originality, using many of the same techniques from the first film but with fewer jarring sequences. However, the score to the second film is what really carries it to the end. The music, in my humble opinion, is more memorable and gives a sense of worldly ambience. Indeed, I loved the score so much that directly after watching "Powaqqatsi" I went on-line and purchased the CD. As a combination, these two films are engrossing, dated here and there, annoying at times, but overall, emotionally moving. What sold me on the 2-pack is the fact it's only a couple of bucks more for both. To me, it was worth it. It's like I got the second film as a rental that I never have to return. Adios.
Astounding
Rating
December 11, 2003
This film is one of few that has used this form of media to it's full potential. The combination of images and music presented in a fashion that allows the view to extrapolate meaning (rather than have meaning thrust upon them) is both refreshing and thought-provoking. This trilogy is a true artistic masterpiece.
This is a very different movie
Rating
February 19, 2001
I just found out that this movie is not available for purchase and is hard to find for rent. I bought a copy on VHS over ten years ago and just realized how rare it is today.
If you are an environmentally and socially conscious person and feel that you are pro-earth and pro-people then this movie will connect with you. If you aren't, then don't bother. The message will be lost on you and you'll just fall asleep watching it.
However, the images are something else. I was on a 36 hour fast and put this video on again. I had not watched it in some time. It was like I had never seen the movie before.
The only way that you can get this movie on DVD today is to make a 180 dollar contribution to the makers of this movie who have run short of money and are working on the third part of the trilogy of "Qatsi" movies. They have a website where they will tell you how to make the purchase. Just enter the title of the movie plus .com
It would be well worth the money spent to get this on DVD because of the powerful imagery and the Glass soundtrack.
Life Out of Balance
Rating
May 2, 2000
Koyaanisqatsi is a very moving film consisting of powerful visual images set against the music of Philip Glass. It is not a movie with a story or a plot, but an art film with a message about the dangers of unheeded progress that ignores the laws of nature. The word Koyaanisqatsi is from the Hopi Indian language, and means "crazy life", of "life out of balance", and Life Out of Balance is the sub title of this film.
The film opens with scenes of nature filmed in time lapse, then gradually moves into man's world. The scenes convey both beauty and ugliness at the same time, and take us to airports, freeways, skyscrapers, the comings and goings of people, microscopic views of integrated circuits contrasted with satellite views of cities, and the eerie ghost town images of the failed Pruit Igoe housing project. The film concludes with Hopi prophesies warning us of the dangers of taking too much from the world, and even of nuclear holocaust.
Even if you disagree with the message of the film, the visual images and the artistic vision of the film make it well worth seeing. If you are a fan of Philip Glass' music, then that is an even more compelling reason to see it. If you don't like Philip Glass, then watch it with the sound off. I once saw this movie with the Philip Glass ensemble performing live at UCLA's Royce Hall. It was a very deeply moving experience, and one of the most profound live performances I have been to.
Sadly this beautiful film is out of print, but it used to be available on VHS, and may still be lurking in some independent video stores. If you find it, then rent it, and if you see this playing in a revival house, then go way out of your way to see it. This film is not for everyone, but if you have read this far, you will like the movie, and kick yourself if you miss a chance to see it. Hopefully it will be released on DVD, as that would be a far better medium for this film than VHS. I don't know if it was ever released on LVD, but I would love to have it if was.
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