Naqoyqatsi

I read the other review here before seeing the movie and desperately hoped it was wrong - it wasn't. Koyaanisqatsi was, and still is, a great movie -- full of sweeping images and magnificent scope, the movie certainly had an eloquent statement to make. I was hoping for something similar in the third installment.

This was an exercise in tedium. It seemed as though the filmmakers raided the Time-Life library of iconic 20th century images and fed them through a special effects filter. It's as if they felt that what worked in Koyaanisqatsi, would work here -- extreme closeup, slow-motion etc. But the images here had nothing to say.

There was no emotion. Just wall-to-wall shots of everything from dollar signs, 0's and 1's, faces, bodies, computer chips, JFK, Martin Luther King, Bin Laden, buildings ripped by tornados... you get the picture. To make matters worse, everything was put through amateurish f/x-- mosaic, grain, vortex, inverted.

While it may have been a technical marvel, the end result felt empty and labored. Footage near the end consisted of juxtaposing images of real global street violence with video game violence -- but so what? Nothing new was said here. A real shame to end this way...

What a let down. Koyaanisqatsi was brilliant, Powaqatsi was quite good, Naqoyqatsi is the same thing all over again, without the beauty and profundity.

It's not that I don't sympathise with the meaning behind the film, but bombarding me with images of dollar signs and corporate logos is using a sledgehammer to crack a nut. The majority of those who view this movie do not need to be chaperoned around these issues.

The film feels structureless and jumps back and forth from one point to the next and then back again. I suppose you could argue that this reflects the chaotic nature of the films subject matter, but to me, that's just making excuses for a poorly conceived narrative.

The computer graphics don't work well at all. They often feel like an excuse to show of a few fancy special effects and already look dated (Max Headroom came to mind on several oc...oc...oc...occasions.). They just don't have the beauty of a 'real' image.

To add insult to injury, the film has been stretched out from a 4:3 aspect ratio to 16:9 so all of the people appear distorted. This is because the stock footage used was 4:3 and they couldn't be bothered editing it to fit into a widescreen presentation. They just stretched the lot, and when you watch the DVD it is very noticeable. It's claimed that this was a deliberate move and not a decision based on technical difficulties, but I'm not sure.

Overall - I'd say watch koyaanisqatsi again - it's the only film out of the three worth repeated viewings.

Welcome to the digital age, a world of speed, cultural hybridity, multi media, and perceptual overload, all of which are expressed beautifully in Godfrey Reggio's third entry Naqoyquatsi.

This one is vastly different from the previous two. Wheras Koyaanisqatsi and Powaquatsi were done in the real world, much of Naqoyqatsi is done on the computer. Using just about every computer graphic available at the time, Naqoyqatsi feels more like a piece of art than the other two. After deciding that Powaqatsi was a dud, I was pleased to see that Godfrey Reggio made a recovery. Naqoyqatsi is almost on par with it's fore father Koyanisquatsi, although depending on which on you see first, you may prefer this one. This one strikes me as less epic than Koyanis, in part because it's faster editing allows for much more advanced montages which are so overwhelming at times that they occasionally provoke headache.

The message behind this film is the way humanity is a competitive species. I think Alfred Adler would adore this movie. One of Freud's students, he believed that the human condition is based on seeking superiority. Naqoyqatsi shows us two forms of competition. One is sporting events, and the other is physical war and fighting.

Phillip Glass once again, works his musical magic, although it seems like some of the score was borrowed from Koyaanisqatsi. Together, Reggio and Glass have provided a trilogy of sights and sounds that defy all the conventions of cinema, to favour aesthetics.

Having seen Koyanisqatsi and Baraka I was very much looking forward to viewing this movie to see how Godfrey Reggio's view of the world has changed and what nuggets of visual wisdom he would impart to me this time around. Needless to say (if you read the summary) I was quite disappointed in the way Mr. Reggio presented his latest film.

If one is seeing this film then one is more than likely already familiar with, and highly sensitive to, the problems that are facing the Earth today. Naqoyqatsi seems to delight in pummeling the viewer with shot after out of focused, highly contrasted, digitally altered shot of the continued plagues of the world.

Yes Mr. Reggio, we know that war is bad, that ideological conformity is limiting, that destruction of the environment threatens our future. The task now at hand is not to document the continuation of these negative historical trends but to show those of us interested how we can begin to live our lives differently to alter the course of history.

After walking out of the movie I felt I had just left an extended 90 minute MTV Yo Yo Ma music video. And not a good MTV video but one of those I-can't-concentrate-for-more-than-2-seconds music videos. Disjointed, depressing, confusing and incoherent are the words I would use to best describe this movie. Skip it.

first off i consider koya one of my top movies and think highly of powa as well. this is not either of those movies. it has been made in a different time .

because my expectations were so entrenched i had to stop this movie halfway thru thinking it was crap and take a break.

then i came back to it and really enjoyed the last half. not to say this movie is as well crafted as koyaniqaatsi because it isn't.

but it is very different, the linear sense of koya is gone replaced with chaotic and seemingly unrelated images thrown together into a relentless barrage. At first i struggled to find the underlying theme/string that connected it all as such was in koyanisqaatsi but there was none and i became disappointed. but perhaps the movie is more reflective of the chaotic barrage of information we live in. the unending information and violence overload.

in koyanisqatsi i felt hope perhaps in this nothing but the maddening roar of modern day society tearing itself apart.

its been twenty odd years since koyanisqaatsi and everything portrayed in that movie has only become more intense, more fractured. perhaps this movie lacks the simple sublimeness of the first because reggio not longer sees the world as such. the madness of modern man is much more evident in this. the oversaturation in the movie reflecting the over saturation the skewed perspective our world has.

this movie is certainly not as easy to digest as reggio's other works and i would like to return to it as some point. To those who enjoyed the first two i would say watch this but leave your preconceived notions and expectations behind.