Naqoyqatsi

Rating:
Summary: A Mind Trip Into The Human Condition in A Digital Age
Review: Naqoyqatsi is a masterpiece!
The conclusion of a visual and musical journey into the condition of human beings that started with the booming chorus of Koyaanisqatsi, and the technological advances that allowed men to conquer space,passing by the effect of globalization on cultures and diversity in Powaaqatsi, and ending in the last scene of Naqoyqatsi with a digitilized human floating away into oblivion in a darkness of nothingness that is space.
It is a philosophical mind trip,almost psychadelic like no other film managed to take. But then again the 'qatsi' trilogy do not resemble any other film.
The sheer power of images is the narrative, actors, plot and essential core of this unique cinematic experience, blended perfectly with the music of Philip Glass, and loosely connected by their main theme,but vary greatly from the intense,the fast-paced,the spiritual, to the haunting.
Naqoyqatsi I felt was the closest to the original in terms of these images (the space rockets, the waves, the cars, the oil rigs..),and in terms of the initial message of director Reggio, and as such it becomes the prefect ending to this marvellous saga.
Yet what distinguishes Naqoyqatsi from the other previous two films is the music of Glass. In the last of this trilogy, he SURPASSES himself, and manages to write his best work to date, pieces of classical music that at times have the same structure of Koyaanisqatsi but vastly developed,at others loosely inspired by Shostakovitch's Introduction in The Gadfly but remaining original thoughout. All the score enriched by the melancholic and beautiful cello of the hugely talented Yo Yo Ma. This music touched me like no other soundtrack or modern music managed to do in a long long time,and contributed greatly in itself to giving a breath of life to the barrage of digital images. Minimalist music never sounded more melodic and effective as it did in Glass's score for Naqoyqatsi.
This leaves me with one point I have to make, which I think is vital,
Naqoyqatsi should be judged and reviewed with all three films in mind and not on its own.
Surely,by itself, it is a very ambitious and haunting piece of work, but when seen in the context of the whole trilogy as a fitting end to the journey taken throughout the three films,it becomes more poignant,and its impact much more effective.
The constant digital images might not be to everyone's liking,but then again nor probably will the message of the film:the condition that the human race have reached in this unstoppable and virtually insane technological progress.
These digital images can be seen as a mirror to that progress,that perfectly reflect that condition and the way we might very well be heading.
Naqoyqatsi is a MUST buy, a film that will captivate your senses,touch you deeply and make you think hard, a feat director Godfrey Reggio should be applauded and praised for.

Rating:
Summary: Time wil tell what this film holds...
Review: This film is very much absorbed in the present. It's difficult to review this film without comparison to its predecessors but then again it is a trilogy. However, as Glass notes in the bonus material, no one was waiting for Koyaanisqatsi so the expectations were not as high. As Koyaanisqatsi was filmed solely in the U.S. and focused mostly on things and as Powaqqatsi focused mostly on people from 'other' countries, this one kind of transcends any such distinction. It takes place in the digital world, something of a shadow of the real world. I suppose that's the point.

Yo Yo Ma's contribution to Glass' score is stunning and it seemed to me to be timed with the imagery on the screen, something the other two films did not do, at least not so on cue. As such, his music definitely sets the feel of this film.

As for the film itself, it is radically different in tone than the other two. Almost every single frame is laced with digitial manipulation, symbolic perhaps but oftentimes rather tedious -- but again, that's the point. Sensory overload requires some tweaking to see things with a different perspective.

As with the other two films, there are some stunning images that will remain with you after you've watched the film. The images are not new and fresh but are recycled with a twist. This is not necessarily a negative but the argument could be made that it is like colorizing classic black and white films. This may be a bit harsh and truly time will tell whether this film is in fact a classic.

There are moments of poetry and genius that arise in the film and in that this it is a worthwhile journey to undertake. The images kind of wash over you slowly. There are statements made about our world, some subtle some not so subtle, and there is definitely a message behind the film. The opening reveals the transition from the industrial age to the birth of the information age and how humanity is being swallowed by its own genius. Just try and view it with a clean slate and digest it. The first films took several viewings before really becoming a part of me.

Perhaps my only real criticism would be the 'extras'. Perhaps we're being spoiled (or sucked in) to the whole DVD thing and the proliferation of bonus material. Aside from the panel discussion held at NYU, the extras on this DVD are rather lame. The discussion is quite interesting but much of what is said can be found in the bonus materials on the other two DVDs. Then again, the recycling of most everything seems to be indicative of the modern age.

By the way, the whole concern of the 'proper' transfer is indicative of our digital age. Just watch the scene with the famous faces and the effect is perfect, something you couldn't accomplish with the 'proper' transfer. As noted above, this whole discussion of perfect and proper and exacty is exactly the point of the film (if you allow your irony meter to run on full) and truly time will tell just how 'prophetic' it really is.

Rating:
Summary: 80% Cheese
Review: The music is great. But 80% of the images are STOCK photos that you would pull from some video library--run through filters as though they had just discovered them. From the discussion on the DVD, apparently they meant it to be that way, but it comes across as cheesy cliché imagery. Their excuse is that it requires the viewer to 'work' more...translation = it lacks the universal quality that differentiates 'good' from 'GREAT!'

Rating:
Summary: Naqoyqatsi DVD incorrectly coded?
Review: I just got the DVD of "Naqoyqatsi," and about 1/4 of the way through it I started to wonder if there is something wrong with it. The back of the box indicated that it is in anamorphic widescreen, and it certainly appeared to be at first. However, circular shapes and people's faces and figures were obviously stretched out from side-to-side (or compressed from top to bottom). At first I thought that this distortion might be an intentional effect, but it seemed to me unlikely that it would be consistent in every single scene throughout the entire film. Using the controls on my DVD player, I was able to compensate for the distortion by stretching the image from top to bottom, and low and behold, at the point where circles and faces looked about right the image filled the entire TV screen with no letterboxing. If my compensation was correct, then this would appear to be a full-screen transfer that was encoded incorrectly. I just checked the official website for the "Quatsi" trilogy and one person in the forum there addressed this question, but there doesn't seem to be any official response yet. As I've thus far seen nothing else on the web about this problem, I thought I should post something about it for potential buyers.

I find the film itself fascinating, as I did the previous two in the trilogy, but I suspect that something is fundamentally wrong with this DVD transfer. If I'm correct in this, then people without a player that allows them to stretch the image will be unable to view this film properly, but I'd like to see some official comment on this from the filmmakers or distributors.

Rating:
Summary: Digital Vomit
Review: What a complete disappointment. I waited patiently for 15 years for the completion of the Qatsi trilogy, and Reggio pukes up a video nightmare. The first two films had moments of beauty to contrast the theme of technological hell, but Naqoyqatsi is completely bereft of any aesthetics whatsoever. Only the beginning shots of an old Michigan train station and later of deep iterations of the Mandelbrot Set held any kind of aesthetic quality. This is just a moralistic harangue about how the 21st century, with all its dizzying digital unreality, really and truly sucks. Yo Yo Ma was good, but that's about it. Man, I hate the 21st Century.

Rating:
Summary: Let it wash over you
Review: The most remarkable thing about this film is the music. Philip Glass never misses, and I don't just mean this film.
"Civisised Violence" or "Life as War" is what we are told about this film. Sometimes this is obvious, soldiers at war or missiles and bullets flying through the air. Other times and more often it isn't, a couple kissing or a baby at ease. Many of the images are abstract or computer generated, but after three or four viewings the film isn't that much different from the previous Qatsi films, images and music, perhaps the abstractions turn it into a glorified music video that cost more than "Out of Africa" to make. What would be really helpful would be an audio commentary track by the creators explaining the purpose of each shot.
Even so, this is the most fascinating film that I have ever seen, but not because of the technology. It isn't the future of film, it is the present. It is hypnotic, sometimes the music is hardly there. The pace of the film is generally fast so that when there is something striking like the happy black and white faces, it is passed over too quickly. One viewing isn't enough, stick with again and again, let it wash over you.

Rating:
Summary: Truly Disappointed - not to Expectations
Review: As the last chapter to the trilogy, and 15 years after the last one, I had high expectations for Naqoyqatsi. Unfortunately, time seems to have worked backwards for the duo and neither the score, nor the cinematography has even matched the first two, let alone improve upon them.

The idea of a trilogy is that they all work together, in synch, to deliever an idea or some type of meaning. While the first two excelled in every aspect and were very much similar in composition, this last one did not leverage the strengths of their previous work, mainly the cinematography and the chance to discover new cultures. Except for a few shots, right at the beggining mostly, the whole movie was done in a studio, unlike their predecessors where the difficult part was getting to, and showing, all of the different cultures the world has.

In summary, if you have never seen any *qatsi trilogy, start with the first two. If you have seen the first two, I recommend you rent it before you buy it, and that you forget everything about them as you are about to see this one - it's a complete disconnect.

Lastly, if you're completely new to this type of movie type, start with Ron Fricke's work in Koyaanisqatsi and then see his masterpiece, Baraka.

Rating:
Summary: Great End to A Great Trilogy
Review: I bought the Naqoyqatsi DVD yesterday and have watched it two times since. My first impression was that this third in the Qatsi Trilogy was a lot like the first film only more hectic. I watched it a second time and it seemed a lot slower and not just a jumble of flashy digital images. On first viewing, I found the ending a bit disappointing but on the second viewing I was allowed to look more into the images. The film is great piece of art but still isn't as coheisive as Koyaanisqatsi. The music is probably what holds Naqoyqatsi together so well. The marriage of image and music is perfect.
The DVD has a extremely short clip of Steven Soderburg and Godfrey Reggio talking about the film which isn't all that important. There is a conversation with Yo-yo Ma and Phillip Glass which is nice to have on the DVD but really doesn't give that much insight on the movie. Probably the best extra of the DVD is the NYU Panel Discussion with Godfrey Reggio, Phillip Glass, and Visual Designer Jon Kane.
Some could call this just one long MTV video but I think it holds more substance than that. The message of the film could definitely be different for everyone but, I find that the message of the movie is that life is a stuggle, a struggle against technology, society, religion, and the future. Personally this is my second favorite "qatsi" film, second only to the first film. This is a great conclusion to a wonderful trilogy and should not be missed by fans of the Qatsi trilogy.

Rating:
Summary: By far the best of the trilogy
Review: Okay. I saw this movie in November of last year, and even had the good fortune to meet Mr. reggio himself (I told him to watch "Dancer in the Dark", he said he loved Von Trier and I almost collapsed right there). Anyway, the movie. Of all the opening scenes in the history of cinema, I'd say the opening scene of "Naqoyqatsi" ranks in the top ten most beautiful of all time. The first image you see is an MRI image (made 3-D) of "The Tower of Babel", a painting by a famous Italian painter. It zooms in to show the incredible detail of the painting as the quite frankly INSANE music playing starts building up. Then begins a flawless, completely fluid transition from this amazing image to one even more amazing and, in my opinion, the most powerful in the film - the countless broken windows of an abandoned white building in Detroit. Now, when I saw this the first time, I had no idea where this building was or what type of building it was (someone here said it was a railroad station, though it looked to me like an apartment building). I believe the POINT is the anonymity, or better yet, the universality of the destruction and decay present in this image. It could be anywhere in the world. As Yo-Yo Ma's cello strikes out some of the most unforgettable music you'll ever hear, the camera sweeps to show the face of the ruined building in its entirety and believe me, it's one of the most haunting and beautiful images in the history of film. That's the BEGINNING of this movie! For the next 90 minutes, you're shown a panoply of images that define our times in all their confusion and strife, and all I can say is you probably won't get them out of your head for at least a week after seeing it. How can people call this a disappointment? What MAKES this film so beautiful is the integration of the real and the unreal, of the reality behind the image and the artificiality of the image itself. I believe this film is the synthesis of the trilogy, and that the filmaker's message is that life out of balance ultimately BECOMES life as war. Now, let's just hope it gets out on DVD soon.

Rating:
Summary: Naqoyqatsi
Review: This film is amazing. i can't wait for it to come out on DVD. It easily surpasses the picturesque Powaqqatsi, but it's tough to compare to Koyaanisqatsi, because I grew up with that film. But this film is mindlblowing and memorable. **SPOILER** Except for the last ambiguous and unmemorable 5 minutes, with the astronaut twiring around in space **END OF SPOILER** this film is simply great. Glass outdoes himself with an amazing score with the help of the great Yo Yo Ma. Reggio chooses numerous powerful and realistic everyday images and puts them together with state of the art digital effects. The opening sequence from the Tower of Babel fading to the abandoned railroad station in Detroit has to be one of the greatest images I have ever witnessed in my entire life. I can't shake that mesmerizing image out of my head, along with many others in this miracle of a film. As I have stated aboout a million times, this film is simply amazing and one hell of an experience. this movie is so good that I can't even spell correctly...it's amazing how anxious I am to get this and own it and watch it a million times, because I probably will.