Descent into the Maelstrom

Not properly a documentary, more like a sensorial exlerience. Beautiful footage, good music. However, not properly a remarkable sensorial experience, at least not by watching on TV.

Although it bills itself as a performance of Edgar Allan Poe's 'Descent into the Maelstrom', composed by Philip Glass, and begins with a reading out of the said work and then the orchestra are seen getting ready to perform, the actual film is a visual essay about Norwegian rural and maritime life. Where it differs from Godfrey Reggio's films of the Qatsi series is that there is only normal speed footage, rather than anything speeded up or slowed down (or very little). Descent into the Maelstrom was commissioned as a dance piece from Philip Glass in 1986; being from very much the same era as Koyaanisqatsi in Glass's repertoire, comparisons to the former film are inevitable. Descent has been filmed with the benefit of 21st century technology, pin-sharp HD images in a glorious variety of colours, so it loses nothing when seen on a good quality widescreen television. Since the music is fixed, the editing isn't quite as poetic as it was for the Qatsi films, where the music was composed to the images..