Naqoyqatsi

Rating:
Summary: Make sure you know what you're buying.
Review: If you saw the trailer for Naqoy, you probably were thinking, "OH YEAH, I WANNA SEE THIS RIGHT NOW". And then you remembered that it was by the same guy that made Koyaanis and Powaquatsi.

These movies are probably fantastic if you use drugs. I don't use drugs and they are extremely boring. They are fun for background imagery for a party with loud music and things going on, but to sit down and watch any of these movies in the trilogy without the use of drugs is almost impossible. I'm a pretty patient guy, but all of these movies are irritating. The music is repetitive. The slow motion makes you nauseus.... and talk about having absolutely no point.

It's like a free association experience. You see images on the screen. What do they make you think of?

I've bought all three of the movies in the trilogy because people seem so amazed by the movies. I had a friend who recommended it more than seeing any other movie in the world. Of course, that friend uses drugs and that is why it was interesting to him. I'm a sober dude. So if you're a sober person, don't buy it. If you use drugs, i'm sure this movie is fantastic. If you're sober, stay away.

Rating:
Summary: Beautiful parts but unsatisfying whole
Review: There is no question that this film, like others in the trilogy, includes powerful and beautiful imagery. These images and pieces are amazingly well-crafted. Throughout the film there are wonderful images unfortunately interpersed with a number of too-familiar pieces of stock footage. (Do we really need another series of mushroom cloud images?)

As much as I admire Philip Glass & Yo-yo Ma, I found the music far less interesting than in the other installments of this trilogy.

I agree with those that assert that the main weakness of the film is that lack of a coherent flow or structure. The message is clear from the beginning and doesn't develop or unfold. I confess I watched the DVD in three sittings because I couldn't maintain attention long enough to get through it.

Rating:
Summary: Interesting But Not as God This Time Around
Review: I am reviewing this after my second viewing so it is possible that it just hasn't clicked with me yet, but will fall into place with a few more viewings. Glass' music and the -qatsi films are like that sometimes. Still, I don't remember the two others, Koyaanisquatsi and Powaqatsi taking this long for me to acclomate to them.

Here's the problem. To be honest, even for a diehard Glass fan like me, these films take endurance. No dialogue, no 'script' or obvious plot - it takes a certain degree of fortitude. This is okay though because the films offer much artistic incentive, and what I've always noticed is that even without plot or script the films - the first two at least - have a powerful forward motion in both the music and visual. Well, after viewing a second time to make sure I've not missed something, I can say that this film offers virtually no forward motion offering the viewer little by way of incentive. Whereas the music of the other two films was, dare I say, directional in its energy, this score finds almost listless sections interposed with energetic ones, alternating between the two so much that one just gets tired of it after a while. Similarly, the visual is not very cohesive. We go from digitally touched up shots of people playing sports, to people marching in armies, to barrages of digital scenery of landscapes, to mushroom clouds back to people playing sports. If there is a direction here, I didn't see it.

Another reviewer suggested (borrowing from Roger Ebert) that the movie is best viewed as a long music video. This is where the three stars come in. Despite its lack of directionality and its almost free-floating feel, the visual and score are stellar. Literally, this is some of Glass's best music. The visual sparkles too. Particularly owing to the digital nature of the images (not one scene hasn't been doctored in some way), this film is certainly a visual spectacle (much the way the Imax films are).

So as not to sound confusing, the gist is this: metaphorically, this film is like spending the day at an art gallery. The pictures are absolutely stunning, but don't expect any directionality moving from painting to painting. In the way that one could look at paintings in a gallery in any random order without changing the overall effect, one could scramble the parts of this movie into any order and no effect would be lost. Yes, that is a criticism because I could not imagine being able to do that with the other two films. Like Baraca, this film is good, but one doesn't come away feeling like one has seen 'a film' so much as a bunch of '5 minute slices' put together in a random fashion.

Good, but I simply expected more.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent, but weakest of the Trilogy.
Review: There are two kinds of people. The people who "get" this movie and the people who don't. This review is directed at thos who will "get" the movie, so I will skip explaining or reviewing the unique style of presentation. This movie is the weakest of the trilogy, it is still an excellent movie and for those who enjoyed the two earlier movies, Pawaqqatsi and Koyaanqatsi will certainly enjoy the final chapter. My opinion of the final chapter is that is depended too heavily on CG giving it a big-budget hollywoodian look that is somewhat counter to it's message and roots. The music, imagery and overarching message remains as beautiful as it is poignant. But it is the over-depedence on silly effects and CG which I felt could have been used more effectively that hurt this film and made it weaker than the others. But it still holds it's power and message above all this if you are willing to watch and listen for it.

Rating:
Summary: Left me feeling a little low-brow
Review: Before saying anything else, I should say that I haven't seen any of the other parts of this trilogy.

Now, generally I don't think of myself as an uncultured person, but this film leaves me a little unsure of that.

Visually, I thought this film was pretty amazing. The images have a great deal of texture and the color - when present - is vivid. Lush computer-generated graphics have a sort of balancing effect on some of the old images. At times, though, I felt as though the director, Godfrey Reggio, was being a little unimaginative. Oftentimes his only fingerprint on the image is doing that effect that makes the film look like a film negative (obviously I'm not a film student).

The images are pretty varied, which helps considering the film is almost an hour-and-a-half. In my opinion, though, the actual "Naqoyqatsi" - Life as War - doesn't really set in until the last thirty minutes or so. Perhaps I'm not seeing the message in the earlier file footage, but it appeared to me that Reggio was dipping a little too much into the ESPN archives. The last thirty minutes, however, has the sort of material I was expecting (and hoping for), like atomic blasts that destroy buildings and forests, riots, et cetera.

The music is unimpeachable. Philip Glass' score is remarkably beautiful and Yo Yo Ma (whose work I'm not very familiar with) does a great job. The music really sets the pace and makes it more accessible.

All in all, this wasn't bad. Unfortunately, I'm an uncouth person who generally doesn't get any more artsy than Kubrick.

Rating:
Summary: POWERFIL VISUAL METAPHPOR OF DIGITECH WAR
Review: Godfrey Reggio's NAQOYQATSI translates "Life As War" and tackles humans versus technology. Does the global digital wiring that increasingly infiltrates our everyday lives infect our waking and dreaming minds? Flowing visual metaphors of manipulated images of intimacy, scope, despair, achievement and hope wash up in waves of near mandala-like patterns until the viewer succumbs to a semi-trance state, partly induced by the music of composer Phillip Glass and cellist Yo-Yo Ma.

Rating:
Summary: Naqoyqatsi is a horrible film-and not at all worth seeing
Review: I doubt Reggio decided before doing Koyanisqatsi that he would create a total of 3 films-all which have no correlation whatsoever. I think it is false advertising to call these 3 films a "Trilogy" when the only thing they all have in common is the fact that it is all images and no dialogue. I watched this on DVD and saw that Reggio compiled a bunch of stock footage and just edited it creating a hodgepodge of meaningless, repetitive visuals that were lacking in originality.
Koyanisqatsi was a great film, in my opinion. Unfortunately, Naqoyqatsi did not live up to my expectations and left me w/a poor impresson of Reggio as a director. My boyfriend and I scanned fast forward on the DVD and could not believe how nothing tied together. If people want to sit and assume, or buy into the idea that this is a masterpiece-then you are creatively challenged. The only way to find this remotely interesting is to drop some blotter or fungi and watch.

Rating:
Summary: Still another part of the world we live in.
Review: A film like this does not coincide well with the idea of using stars and numerical ratings to evaluate overal quality. This is a unique film. Even in the "genre" of films such as "Barakaa" and the other two "Qatsi" films... this film can be said to be unique. In that sense I think it has the most in common with "Koyanisqatsi" which of all these possible peers made the greatest inpact because at the time it was first released nothing like it had really been seen or done before. "Koyanisqatsi," still a masterpiece on home video, was originally a theatrical film with magnificent cinematography capturing the surrounding world set to a lush hypnotic score by Philip Glass. A lot of that information may seem redundant, that it was a theatrical film for example, but it bears mentioning because "Koyanisqatsi" was originally a unique presentation. It was something that had never really been done before, or at least something which hadn't been done on that scale. "Naqoyqatsi" is similar in that it is doing something different than the other films it is associated with. As a result it has far more in common with "Koyanisqatsi" than its other siblings. "Koy" was a film about the world we live in. "Nagoy" is as well. The difference is that "Koy" was about a world of physical surroundings. "Nagoy" is about a world of images, media, ideas, and the way they are presented to us through visual mediums. "Koy" was about the physical world we live in. "Nagoy" is a about the world we live in as it is presented to us by the tools we use to view it. As a result people who criticize this film for using stock footage may want to look at this film again and consider it from this point of view. The stock footage is what is "being filmed" just as the Grand Canyon and manufacturing conveyor belts were filmed in "Koy" or third world work camps in "Powa". Those films focused on captruing and commenting on our surroundings... "Nagoy" is commenting on what we watch when we turn on a TV. It wouldn't make sense to film these images framed inside a TV... but if you think of it in this way... it might make more sense what Reggio and Glass are doing. Better still also consider the very generous extras on this disc. An NYU symposium with Glass, Reggio and Jon Kane, the editor who is this film's Ron Fricke provides each with an opportunity to explain what they were after. Chances are though, if you approach this film looking to experience something different, the way filmgoers first approached "Koy", and so long as you don't expect "Koyanisqatsi III", the film will make the points it has to make for itself. I found this film to be tremendously thought provoking and as rewarding as Koyanisqatsi.

Rating:
Summary: Life as Mish-Mash
Review: Whereas K-qatsi & Ron Fricke's Baraka easily earn five star ratings for their originality, form, and unity, N-qatsi suffers from many of the same shortcomings of P-qatsi. Again, I can only rate this effort a two.

The theme of N-qatsi is 'Life as War', and there are many sequences here to support that theme, literally and figuratively. But there is also a lot of stuff thrown in that doesn't really support the theme at all and just confuses the viewer. I guess one could make the case that humanity is at war with everything and anything, and therefore all material is relevant, but that's just a bit too facile an approach. Strangely, some of this filler material is among the more interesting footage. I especially liked the short zoom into the Mandelbröt Set, the MRI imaging sequence, and the rapid morphing of old masters oil paintings.

Aside from issues with content, form and momentum are again lacking. The narrative is just too disjointed. You could cut this together in a thousand different ways and it really wouldn't make much difference. Aside from the opening sequence (which is very much like K-qatsi in certain respects), the overall pacing, for all its freneticism, is actually quite monotonous. Maybe life can be monotonous. Maybe war, too, at times can be monotonous. But both usually build up to some sort of defining moment and I just don't find that happening here.

The addition of a cello on top of Glass' trademark minimalist scoring is a nice touch. The prominent solo cello smoothes out the inherently mechanistic effect of minimalism, producing a pleasing synthesis. Still, one might question this particular combination for a film that is subtitled 'Life as War'. If anything, war is mindless and mechanical, so straight minimalism might have better supported the film's theme. Nevertheless, the music does very much help to tie the video together and smooth the edges, while the liberal use of odd meters keeps things a bit edgey.

As for the aspect ratio debate, I think the problem is that there is just a ton of full frame (or slightly wider) stock video in this movie. There are points throughout the film where the aspect ratio does appear normal, but there are many more where it does not. I find this type of distortion especially noticeable on the human face. Instead of cropping these images from above or below so that they would maintain the proper aspect ratio when enlarged and transferred to widescreen, it would appear they were just indiscriminately stretched to fit into the widescreen frame. The images that aren't distorted are probably from source material that was already widescreen or was custom shot for the film. On the other hand, almost the entire film consists of fleeting images that are heavily processed, filtered, and distorted in a myriad of other ways, so it hardly matters that the aspect ratio isn't consistent. Still, it kind of strikes one as sloppy. Maybe somebody was 'at war' with the film's technical supervisor.

All in all, N-qatsi is probably worth a rental. It's just a shame so much time passed between K-qatsi and the other two. Something unique and powerful was lost in the interim.

Rating:
Summary: a cinematic tone poem
Review: In the hustle and bustle of a chaotic world, we often don't take the time to stop and really look at all the beautiful things that tend to pass us by unnoticed. It is Godfrey Reggio's aim in "Naqoyqatsi" - as it was in his previous "Koyaanisqatsi" and "Powaqqatsi" - to focus our attention on all the artistry inherent in the shapes, forms and patterns that make up our universe. His film is a succession of images, some of them derived from nature (clouds, ocean waves), others from Man (buildings and bridges), and others from computer-generated fantasy. These he filters through his observant camera eye, state-of-the-art processing and ingenious editing to create a cinematic tone poem. The element that most separates "Naqoyqatsi" from Reggio's earlier works is the much heavier reliance on camera trickery and CGI effects here. For the most part, Reggio has moved away from nature as his subject and towards the cyber realities of the current age. Thus, the altered emphasis in form seems not merely appropriate but thematically valid as well, as Reggio examines a world in which nature has been largely eclipsed by computer technology.

At the end of the film we are told that "Naqoyqatsi" is a Hopi word meaning, essentially, "war" and "violence." I'm not sure, though, that Reggio has really earned that title with his film. True, he does include a few shots of mushroom clouds, of street riots, of violent video games, but they hardly account for the majority of the images we see. Perhaps it is the clash between nature and technology that he is referring to here, but the title - at least as defined at the end - still seems to fall a bit short of the mark.

Still, Reggio is often able to find poetry in even the most disturbing of images. For instance, there's an amazing shot of a trio of crash test dummies performing a macabre, yet strangely beautiful slow motion "dance" in a simulated airplane crash. It is but one of the many unforgettable images in the film.

Enhanced by the haunting music of Philip Glass, "Naqoyqatsi" offers a dazzling kaleidoscopic view of the world, a visual tour de force for the aesthetically inclined.