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Summary: Koyaanisqatsi Released on DVD At Last!
Review: I have loved this film for many years and I do own the director's edition of the film on DVD. I thought everyone would like to know that I received an email from the director/producer of Koyaanisqatsi this morning stating that the long legal battle over the rights for both Koyaanisqatsi AND the sequel, Powaaqatsi are over and the DVD will be released as early as the Fall of 2002. Both films will be released on DVD and VHS at this time! The deal was struck between IRE and MGM in late January. So, the wait seems to be over...Only a little longer to wait and these gems will be out on DVD! :-)
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Summary: Beauty before message
Review: I've just read all 111 reviews before this one, and every one is enthusiastic. I am an enthusiastic lover of the movie as well,...... It is just to criticize the "machine for living" side of modernism (the Pruitt Igoe sequence, which must be read in the light of Charles Jencks' famous dictum that the destruction of that modernist housing project--depicted in the movie--ushered in the postmodern era, establishes this as a main theme of the movie), but you just have to relax and revel in the complex texture of the images. For example, there is a scene in which we are presented with a row of electrical towers marching off into the horizon across the desert. I used to see this only as an attempt to get us to say "Yuck! Towers spoiling the pristine desert." After a few viewings it suddenly occurred to me that the towers are anthropomorphically shaped and the camera angle does indeed make them look like a serried row of giants which dwarf the desert. Whether you agree with the movie's ideological bent or not, this is clever, beautiful cinematography (and Glass in fact has a very dire march behind this scene!). Again, I think we are supposed to be horrified by the reused footage of the atomic tests, but the scene, with the accompanying score, is one of the most powerful and beautiful moments in the movie. It has the effect of exciting wonder at precisely what the filmmakers probably want to condemn. The movie's overstatement is probably due to the makers' strong convictions, which are far from contemptible, and their desire to compensate for the lack of dialogue to establish their themes (by the time the Hopi prophecies come up it's all over). This has not, however, stopped them from creating one of the richest and most complex set of images I have ever seen, and the fact that one can continue decoding the images after years of repeated viewings shows that we were anything but being condescended to ...
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Summary: Non-verbal. Non-linear. Non-cliched.
Review: When someone asks me what my favorite movies are, I usually give them a fairly predictable list: 2001, Citizen Kane, The Seven Samurai, and so on. By the time I get to #10 or so, I add, "Oh, and 'Koyaanisqatsi.'" That stops them cold. Most people, even folks who consider themselves film buffs, have never heard of "Koyaanisqatsi." Most of them can't even pronounce it. (No foul there; I get tripped up on Ukranian names myself. No reason to expect them to get a Hopi word perfectly the first time.) When I tell them about it, though, my own eyes light up and my hands move and my face twists in all different ways. And they see that, and they get curious, and then they too want to see this amazing movie that has no plot, no dialogue and no characters. It is one of the most extraordinary movies ever made. "Koyaanisqatsi" is one of the very few truly experimental movies in which the experiment is a success. It has, as I have said, nothing resembling a conventional plot. There are no main characters, or supporting ones, for that matter. There is not a single word spoken during the film, except for songs in the Hopi language. It is entirely images of nature, mankind, and the artifacts of mankind -- sometimes speeded up, sometimes slowed down, sometimes in real time, but always seen in a curiously wide-eyed and totally undiluted way. The film may not have a plot, but it has a story. It opens in the American desert, where the hand of man rarely intrudes, and them moves by degrees into man's world. What I find most interesting is that the movie's editing and camerawork often seem to be doing two things at once: we look at these things man has made, and in some cases we are repelled, but in many cases we are hypnotized or fascinated. When the camera sits at the foot of a giant glass skyscraper, reflecting the clouds around it, should we be repelled? The skyscraper has a beauty to it that is as valid as the buttes in the desert, and one of the movie's treasures is that it makes this argument almost despite itself. The late sections of the film grow faster in editing and in presentation. Philip Glass's score - sometimes slow, sometimes fast, always mesmerizing - both illuminates and stands aside from the movie; it can be heard on its own, as something quite apart from the images, or it can be seen as the Greek chorus for the film's "narrative." This kind of duality runs through the film: we can see it as a relatively straight "visual poem" in which the movie's title -- "life out of balance" -- is depicted in a relatively straightforward way. Or we can look beyond that and see a complex case: As saddening as the world may be, is it not the only one we have? The director of "Koyaanisqatsi," Godfrey Reggio, has made it clear that he considers the film to be both polemical and non-polemical: "KOYAANISQATSI is not so much about something, nor does it have a specific meaning or value ... So while I might have this or that intention in creating this film, I realize fully that any meaning or value KOYAANISQATSI might have comes exclusively from the beholder. The film's role is to provoke, to raise questions that only the audience can answer. This is the highest value of any work of art, not predetermined meaning, but meaning gleaned from the experience of the encounter. The encounter is my interest, not the meaning. If meaning is the point, then propaganda and advertising is the form. So in the sense of art, the meaning of KOYAANISQATSI is whatever you wish to make of it. This is its power." "Koyaanisqatsi" currently exists in a legal limbo which has not been properly resolved. Copies of the movie on DVD are available directly from the movie's web site..., and the funds from purchases of the film help Reggio and his cohorts free the movie from its grave. They will also go towards the production of another film in the "Koyaanisqatsi" cycle, which I imagine will be at least as eye-opening as this one is -- if lacking in the total newness of form that "Koyaanisqatsi" brought with it.
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Summary: Incredible impression
Review: I saw it once, open air, didn't know anything about it. After 1 minute I realized it must be the music of Philip Glass... what followed were (estimated) about 2 hours of stunning music and pictures. Well, stunning is a ridiculous word for that film and that music...in other words: Go see that film! It is worth whatever you will pay for it and try to buy the DVD.
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Summary: Campaign for Koyaansiqatsi release
Review: I hope amazon gets this DVD released. Some people consider Baraka to be in similar vein but Koy is very much the better film. There is a website which is organising a campaign to have the film released on DVD. It describes the legal wrangles involved as there are now several studios claiming the rights, so no one studio is releasing it.
Rating:
Summary: staggering
Review: This is a message movie, but what seperates this from other message movies is that this film tells you nothing... but it shows you so much. It's relevance has only increased since it's initial release almost twenty years ago. Unfortunately the DVD is still out of print. It is possible to obtain a genuine DVD by making a donation to the organization that produced the film. It's not cheap but it will help them finally put it back in print so that others can easily order a copy from ... Do an ... search for Koyaanisqatsi... ... The DVD looks fantastic.
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Summary: Affected by this art/sound piece
Review: It's been about 10 years since my only viewing of this film, but
it's effect on my soul and psyche hasn't weakened any. It seems
almost absurd that a film of this magnitude and scope is not
available for the general public to experience. (...)
Rating: 
Summary: Needs to be released on DVD Video
Review: Wonderful composition. I bought a DVD of it--imagine my dismay when I learned that it was only the soundtrack. Furthermore, I can only listen to it on my DVD player. What a crock! Can't wait for a real DVD to come out.
Rating:
Summary: life out of balance, but in perspective...
Review: This is easily the most haunting soundtrack you will ever encounter. This movie is only recommended to people who are real.
The biggest spinout you will probably see. Baraka is also pretty good, and powasquatsi is not bad either. You may need a few days to recover after experiencing this.
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Summary: Images that will flood your mind for days, even weeks.
Review: Koyaanisqatsi (from the Hopi language), 1. crazy life. 2. life in turmoil. 3. life disintegrating. 4. life out of balance. 5. a state of life that calls for another way of living.
Need I say more?
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