Rating: 
Summary: A Love Letter to Skyscrapers
Review: Koyaanisqatsi opens with stately, wide-angle shots of mesa fields and clouds. The world they depict is vast, uninhabited, almost unearthly. This continues for about a quarter of the movie's length, lulling you into a pastoral reverie. Then suddenly the Philip Glass score becomes more insistent and earthmovers loom up from out of nowhere. Man has arrived, and he's up to no good. What began as ode to unspoiled nature becomes eerie urban dystopia, a montage of slums, factories, and city streets through which hordes of people scuttle in speeded-up motion. (Is "koyaanisqatsi" also the Hopi word for "time-lapse photography"?) In the final sequence a rocket roars off the launch pad only to explode in mid-air, and the camera follows a burning engine as it tumbles Icarus-like back to earth. Then, just in case we've somehow missed the point, the title of the film appears on a black background along with its translation: "a way of life that calls for another way of living".The great thing is, it's entirely possible to miss the point. Director Godfrey Reggio is too inspired a cinematographer for his own good. The sumptuousness of his images keeps undercutting the film's ham-fisted man-as-spoiler message and replacing it with something subtler and more humane. Though the opening landscape shots are beautiful in a National Geographic sort of way, the movie only gets going after it moves into the city. The most distinctive part of Koyaanisqatsi is its time-lapse footage of man-made environments: images of headlights racing down freeways, office building windows blinking on and off, and crowds streaming through Grand Central Station. In the last of these, it seems that all this speed is supposed to be dehumanizing, to make people look like insects, but instead the bustle is jittery and comic, like an old silent film. Crowds that might have been anonymous if filmed at normal speed become individuated as your eye is drawn around, frantically making note of all the faces, gaits, and endearingly bad late-seventies hairstyles. You're literally people watching, and the effect is a humanist one, warm and oddly touching. There's a similar happy misstep in the depiction of technology. Roughly speaking, progress is this bad guy in Reggio's world, with the role of progress played by cities. (As opposed to pristine mesa fields and cloudscapes.) Unfortunately for Reggio, urban settings are stubbornly cinematic. Try to make a beautiful movie about an ugly city and you'll end up making your city look beautiful. (Blade Runner and Metropolis had the same problem.) Though Koyaanisqatsi's official position is a sort of anti-technological moralism, Reggio (like so many moralizers) ends up making the thing he condemns more compelling than the thing he praises. Sprawl has never looked so appealing. Even a side trip into a processed cheese factory is less a swipe at consumer society than a welcome bit of comic relief. Reggio's cityscapes are so strange and vibrant that it seems worth paving over a little nature to have built them. Koyaanisqatsi may have been conceived as an ecological warning, but it ends up being a love letter to skyscrapers.
Rating:
Summary: Philip Glass Rules
Review: Here's the example... The perfect fusion of cinematography and minimalist composition. I dare anyone to come up with anything on par with this cinematic masterpiece...
Rating: 
Summary: MGM's KOYAANISQATSI dvd IS properly matted
Review: This DVD offers the theatrical aspect ratio. While the ratio of the film negative is 1.37 : 1, the intended ratio is 1.85 : 1. The 'Premium Edition' that was offered by IRE as a way of raising funds was 'open matte' or 'unmatted'. For more info, click on the IMDB link below and then click 'Technical Specifications'.
Rating:
Summary: A compelling message, visually appealing
Review: Directed by Godfrey Reggio, produced by Francis Ford Coppola, shot by Ron Fricke and scored by Philip Glass, the first of the "...qatsi" trilogy is a hard work to top. The music, sublime for the most part, minimalistic in its entirety, perfectly frames visuals of incredible natural beauty, mostly shot in the US Southwest followed by contrasting images from NTC, depicting the pollution and desolation brought about by human-"kind." The central theme and the music are aimed at conveying several Hopi prophecies:
-If we dig precious things from the land, we will invite disaster.
-Near the day of Purification, there will be cobwebs spun back and forth in the sky.
-A container of ashes might one day be thrown from the sky, which could burn the land and boil the oceans. All in all a call to action, a call to reflection in these troubled times: as current today as it was upon being released, almost twenty years ago.
Rating: 
Summary: Correcting a misimpression
Review: Someone thinks I may have mistaken IMAX 15/70 for standard 4X3?? No way! My apartment neighbor here in town is an IMAX projectionist. Koyaanisqatsi has never been released in IMAX 15/70, nor has it ever been screened in *any* form at our three IMAX theaters, so I don't understand how I could possibly have confused the two. I grew up on 4X3 films, and was about 8 years old when the first widescreen films started making the rounds. By now, I believe I've viewed every widescreen process there is, including 3-projector Cinemiracle (which was only ever used for one film: "Windjammer"). As a person who has spend almost 4 decades of his life involved in virtually every form of legitimate theater from fringe to grand opera, I'm also pretty familiar with such topics as matting, masking and cropping. I'm glad that the writer from Poulsbo, the projectionist, was able to say with certainty that he ran a 16X9 (1.85:1) Koyaanisqatsi print. I'd have loved to have been there. But I will reiterate what I said a few months ago: the Koyaanisqatsi print I saw here about 10 years ago was 4X3 (1.33:1), no possible exception. I'd watched it on laserdisc many times and was *very* curious what differences would turn up on a large screen. There were none. None. The image appeared exactly the way one would expect a 4X3 image to look when it's thrown up on a contemporary wide screen: an almost-square postage-stamp of a picture smack-dab in the center, reaching all the way from top to bottom, with the side curtains drawn way, way in. The other thing about these home video releases that I've found particularly galling since the audio. As one other writer put it, the current MGM DVD 5.1 mix sounds like expanded 2-channel. I agree, but it wasn't that way in the theater. The surround sound was solid and highly directional, with the synthesizer clearly jangling away at you through the rear speakers. I say again, this MGM DVD could have been SOOOO much better! Now, here's a question I don't think anybody has yet asked. Koyaanisqatsi is sometimes done in concert format, with live music by the Philip Glass Ensemble. Has anybody ever attended one of these things? If you have extremely *clear* memories of what you saw and heard, and would like to share, I, for one, would be absolutely delighted to hear from you. :-) Roy
Rating:
Summary: Best served with a few drinks
Review: Koyaanisqatsi is not at all your typical film. It has no plot, no actors, no dialogue. Yet it carries a strong message through a visual barrage of beautiful cinematography and accompanying music by composer Philip Glass. I had been curious about this film for some time, so I finally checked it out expecting to be bored by it but kept an open mind. I broke my usual rule of no drinking when watching a movie for the first time and had a few shots of tequila, then settled into Koyaanisqatsi. Right from the start as the naturalistic images washed over me, I felt them carry me away. Each image gave way to another, juxtaposed to compare or contrast with the shot before it. Eventually the naturalistic visuals gave way to city and technology, the shots becoming more and more fast paced. And the music fully enhanced the experience, making each view come even more alive. Of course I was somewhat drunk too. But that state only seemed to enhance the film, rather then detract as is usually the case. Without dialogue or plot, my condition helped me let me take in the underlying message of technology creeping into life, taking away individuality and ruining peoples lives. Of course that's just my interpretation, the beauty of this film is it means something different to everyone who watches. This film is, of course, by no means something everyone will enjoy. Most mainstream viewers would find it utterly boring. To be honest, near the end when the alcohol began to wore off, I was beginning to lose a bit of interest too. But in the proper reflective mood, this film almost works as therapy. And if accompanied by a few drinks, can become eye opening. Definitely worth while if intrigued by the idea. And worth a spot in your collection if you need that occasionally therapy session in your own home.
Rating:
Summary: A work of Art
Review: This film is a work of art. It is incredibly touching and awe inspiring. I highly recommend it too anyone that appreciates the natural world, and fights against those that would destroy it.
Rating:
Summary: Words fail
Review: This DVD brings out only one word for me - masterpiece. Before I saw it, I would never have believed any movie could evoke a clearer picture of our troubled existence - and this does it without a spoken word. The music is unbelieveable - Philip Glass did a tremendous job and the director made a wise decision actually cutting some scenes to fit the music; something I cannot imagine most of todays ego driven directors would even consider, let alone condone. This piece should be mandatory viewing.
Rating:
Summary: Mass produced discomfort...
Review: Koyaanisqatsi is a film with a number of shots of different environmental and social settings. This kaleidoscope of moving images creates an endless story with an endless number of notions, however, a recurring theme seems to be disharmony in nature. The cinematic experience is similar to a visit to the Louvre, and yet it produces a feeling of mass production and discomfort. The end product can be whatever the audience wants it to be, thus it is art.
Rating:
Summary: Holds up well despite others overusing its techniques
Review: It's hard to see this film today with the eyes of twenty years ago. Its techniques and even its very images have been used for everything from car commercials to MTV videos to other movies. That's Hollywood for you. But Koyaanisqatsi was a fresh, eye-popping film when it came out, and holds up well considering. (Of course, it may owe a debt to some unlikely sources as well: that the ending of "The Grid" is a lot like the "Star Gate" sequence in Kubrick's 2001.) Whether or not you buy into the film's premise--and even Reggio seems over the years to have backed off on his initial statements that indicted technology--it's quite an intense visceral experience. Reggio doesn't want to debate with you; he wants to bedazzle you. That requires your brain to be hypnotized, even numbed, and so he was right to use Glass' minimalist music. I still don't get the point of the cave paintings that open and close the film--what they are, how they tie in with the rest of the movie. I presume they are Hopi, but since nothing else in the film is Hopi other than the title, and since Reggio could have showed us *any* Hopi artifact (or Hopi, for that matter), this element seems a little out of place. If he's trying to say simple Hopi life is better, it's a weak statement. Or is he saying any simple life is better period? If so, why show just Hopi artifacts? --Except that, he never really says anything about the Hopi side anyway, or the cave paintings, so again, they seem a little out of place. More stunning are images of taxiing 747s coming at us relentlessly. Or a woman in a department store standing mesmerized before a bank of television sets. Or rows upon rows upon rows upon rows of identical project housing in St. Louis. Or a shot of congested freeways that pans up to a billboard for "fun in the sun." Or an aircraft carrier that flippantly and--to me--arrogantly displays "E-Mc2" across its surface. And of course, the last shot is really special, but I won't spoil it for anyone who hasn't seen the film. Yet despite its undeniable visual impact, I think there is a serious flaw in Reggio's film, one that he now tries to backpedal on. I remember when this film was released in 1983 and it was never discussed then as a possible ode to technology. Reggio wanted us to look at the pictures of the smokestacks and land-diggers and skyscrapers and recoil. Philip Glass even confirmed at a recent talk on the film that if Reggio is saying now that he wanted to present technology in all its shining glory, the "belly of the beast," so to speak, he's changing his tune. The film, it can be argued (and Roger Ebert, for one, has argued) doesn't work because we aren't shown enough of the ugly side of technology, we are oftentimes in this movie simply shown technology and expected to find the sight off-putting. Many people in Third World countries, as Glass pointed out, think the "Grid" sequemence is the most glorious part of the movie. The transfer to DVD is good. Some people below are complaining about some of the images not being great when they fail to realize much of it is stock shots blown up from 16mm. (A lot of the "Vessels" video falls into this category, for example.) This film will never look as good its sequels anyway because when Reggio started he wasn't thinking of theatrical release, nor did he have the budget for it. As for the rest of the DVD, I would have liked to see some more "goodies"--the 25 minute interview with Glass and Reggio is okay, but only okay, and most of it consists of Reggio's talking head. (And boy, can that guy talk. To think he once took a vow of silence as a monk boggles the mind. Maybe he's making up for lost time.) There are trailers for all the "Qatsi" films and--incredibly--subtitles in French and Spanish. They merely translate the meaning of the word "Koyaanisqatsi" at the end of the film, as well as the "Prophecies" that, if you ask me, are best left untranslated. Some people have had issues with the audio remix. Sounds good to me--more balanced than the original theatrical release and VHS tape, which tended to be loud and shrill in the horns, especially in the "Pruit Igoe" section. I listened to the DVD both on audiophile headphones and [top-of-the-line] loudspeakers and my only complaint is the volume level is low. I had to "blast" my receiver to get average room volume. Overall, though, this is a welcome release since the last home video dub was that fuzzy VHS tape from about 1986. MGM should have done a better job with extras--the whole presentation looks a little quick and shoddy. As for the debate about the matting, again MGM could have solved this easily, if they'd been thinking, by simply encoding the film in its TV ratio on one side of the disc and its movie ratio on the other side, as many other DVDs in my collection are presented. I wish the Criterion people would have gotten their hands on this--they'd have done it right. I have a feeling someday after the release of the third film, they'll box them all up and issue a "Special Slipcase Edition" or whatever, with extras that should have been here in the first place. That's Hollywood for you.
|
