Koyaanisqatsi, la prophétie

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.

A welcome assault on the senses, 'Koyaanisqatsi' is not for the impatient or nervous. You have to give it time because it is slightly dull in the very beginning, as the music and landscapes are fairly ordinary. Once it gets going, its really fascinating. Some gorgeous images, none generated by a computer I might add, and a soundtrack to match the intensity makes this a unique movie experience. I saw it on the big screen when it was first released, and it was MUCH better than on my not-that-big television.

One of the things I also like about this movie is the fact that since there is no dialogue, it can be shown in any country in the world unchanged. We would all see it the exact same way. I like the idea of that very much.

We are but dust and grime upon the face of the earth...

When this visual opera of the senses was released, somehow I managed to miss it for all these years. Only now, have I been able to get a DVD and feast myself to one of the most mesmerizing documentaries I've seen. Now I can get to see the sequels...

In the twenty-five years since its release, nothing much has fundamentally changed. The only real difference is that the scale of life out of balance has ballooned to the point where humanity has finally realized – perhaps too late – that we are indeed on the path to self-destruction unless radical steps are taken to change our ways. Some might argue that I'm too pessimistic and point to the Montreal protocol (it set the wheels in motion to stop using CFCs that were causing the depletion of the earth's ozone layer) as proof that we can pull together when danger is imminent.

Perhaps true...but the problem is that many still don't think that life on earth – not in the upper atmosphere – is truly out of balance. This documentary takes us all back to what it was like all those years ago – and, as you will see or have seen on your TV news programs today, it's now all that much worse...

The metaphors abound, beginning with Earth, Air and Water as the three dominant and necessary conditions that permit life on this planet, then relentlessly but gradually, showing how humanity changes the very conditions that support balanced life. Mountains explode, fires consume, people increase and multiply together with the trappings humanity needs to keep consuming: traffic jams, food and automobile production, steel and glass monuments to Mammon – surely a parody of Kubrick's images of the monolithic Sentinel in 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) – freeways that look like arteries with blood coursing through veins, images from space that show glowing cities which morph into electronic circuits for computers – we've become the machines we've invented – and, of course, the milling millions, moving through life as though they are the walking dead, oblivious to all except the self and self-gratification.

It is at once a pretty picture and a damning one – of particular note, the sequenced implosion of the abandoned Pruitt-Igoe housing complex in St Louis, designed, ironically, by the architect of the World Trade Center, Minoru Yamasaki.

The music very sensibly doesn't belabour the use of the title; it's chanted only during the opening sequence and during the finale which, in my opinion, is the most stunning tracking shot I've seen yet as the camera follows the detritus from an exploding rocket (a Russian one, I think) plunging back to earth. For the rest of it, just sit back, let the music waft over and through you as you watch your future begin.

This is a film that everybody should see at least once.

Koyaanisqatsi is a unique and thought-provoking film. It came out at about the same time as "My Dinner With Andre", another unique and thought-provoking film which used conversation as virtually the sole method of communicating. Whereas "My Dinner With Andre" consisted entirely of a conversation between two actors, and resulted in the formation of numerous local discussion groups by devotees, Koyaanisqatsi passed relatively unnoticed, perhaps because it used the opposite technique of relying only on images and music, with no dialogue whatsoever. I found both films fascinating.

The first half of Koyaanisqatsi is of a world full of beauty. The most memorable images for me are time-lapse photography of clouds and their shadows moving across the canyon-country landscapes of the desert southwest. Anyone who has spent hours gazing into a fire or watching waves at the beach will find the photography mesmerizing - one of few film experiences that convey natural beauty almost as well as the reality itself.

The second half of the film is an intentionally jarring contrast, starting with a depiction of mechanized destruction of the same beauty for human purposes, i.e. mining coal to produce electricity. The message soon becomes overwhelmingly plain: We are screwing the place up, and are immensely poorer for it. The sourpuss face of frustration and disgust on a woman vainly trying over and over again to light her cigarette with an empty lighter summed it up for me, although other viewers of any sensibility will find plenty of disturbing images from the second half of the film to identify with.

As my friends and I left the theater (sadly, this is one of those films that loses some of its impact on the small screen) one remarked "It's been done. They've made the movie I wanted to make". Some of the commentators here have basically said that, while Koyaanisqatsi is undoubtedly a very good film, they didn't like the message; one referred to people who would enjoy the movie as misanthropes.

While its opposite film, "My Dinner With Andre" was full of discussions about the unarguably wonderful meta-physical potential of sentient beings such as ourselves, and while I enjoyed it a great deal, the contrast between the two seemed to point out that we as a species really are rather full of ourselves at times. Whether one is inclined to agree, or just wishes to see a glimpse of another point of view, one cannot go wrong seeing Koyaanisqatsi. Like the Angel of Death silently pointing out to Ebaneezer Scrooge the error of his ways, this film's message IS unmistakable, and needs no words.

Godfrey Reggio's magnificent documentary "Koyaanitsqatsi" was an amazing experience when it first came out more than twenty years ago. Watching for a second time, this time in DVD format, one realizes how this movie makes the case that it must be seen in the big screen in order to get all the brilliant cinematography in its proper perspective. Even watching it in a 32 plasma screen, one realizes it pales in comparison when projected on a larger movie theater screen.

The images that are presented in the film are just beyond belief. The fantastic music score by that genius, Phillip Glass, compliments and enhances our experience. This film will live forever in spite of some of the comments submitted to this forum, because it deals with universal themes that will stay with us on this planet while human life will exist. This was pioneer movie making that later on became main stream. The originality being in the way the director presents the different sections in the film with some unusual photography that, while imitated, remains the standard for comparison with any new so called latest technique and innovation.

Kudos to Mr. Reggio, Mr. Glass and the people behind this gorgeous film.