Naqoyqatsi

Rating:
Summary: Good, but not quite up to its predecessors...
Review: The first two films of the Qatsi trilogy were made up of organic images accompanied by the music of Philip Glass. Astonishing achievements, they are, mostly because of this. The use of "found" images to tell a story - without dialog or a three-act screenplay - is quite an accomplishment.

So, in the third installment, what was left to achieve? The opposite: to tell a story with synthetic images, but also without reliance on dialog, characters, or formal dramatic structure. A purely abstract film, in other words, where every image could be controlled precisely. The result is Godfrey Reggio's Naqoyqatsi, which, in my opinion, is not quite abstract enough.

When relying on "real" images (i.e., representational) exclusively, you have to find metaphors and make connections indirectly. Koyaanisqatsi's most powerful example of this is a shot toward the end where we see an elderly person's hand emerge from an endless row of hospital beds seen obliquely so that they are nothing more than diagonal lines of metal and plastic. It's a haunting moment - humanity reaching out from the suffocating cocoon of technology it has woven about itself; reaching out for contact with something real.

But the computer-enhanced (and often computer generated) work in Naqoyqatsi goes for the obvious most of the time. Instead of oblique metaphors, we get transliterations: actual ones and zeros flying around the screen to represent information overload; corporate logos in 3-D zooming at us to tell us how pervasive they are - complete with the obvious Cheap Shot at Corporate Greed: the dreaded Enron logo; dollar signs raining on stock traders at the NYSE. And so on.

It's mostly clumsy. We even have a double-image of Dolly the cloned sheep intercut with shots of human eggs being artificially fertilized, followed by a big digital pull-back of lots and lots of naked babies, who are really the same four or five babies repeated endlessly. There is a certain aesthetic beauty in the work - the patterns are reminiscent of Salvador Dali's lattices of insects becoming clock hands; the periodic morphs, of his penchant for landscapes becoming faces. But as a whole, these images lack the elegance that marked the first two Qatsis. They're just too obvious.

That being said, Philip Glass' score is sublime. It's among his better works, eschewing strict minimalist formalism, while maintaining a minimalist kind of simplicity. It features some of the best Neo-Romantic orchestral writing I have heard in some time - a great counterpoint to the cold, industrial images of the film.

For the Completist, I recommend Naqoyqatsi. It's by no means a bad film. But for someone unfamiliar with the Qatsi aesthetic, I wouldn't start with this one. You need a grounding in the artistic sensibilities of the first two films to appreciate what does - and does not - work in this one.

Rating:
Summary: A Bit Different
Review: Godfrey Reggio's third film in the Qatsi trilogy takes a different approach from Koyaanisqatsi and Powwaqatsi, subjecting news and stock footage to digital manipulation, as well as creating original computer-animated sequences. This has the advantage of unifying the film in the visual sense (and overall the imagery is gorgeous), but it loses the firm connection with reality that made Koyaanisqatsi and especially Powwaqatsi so powerful. Compared to the first two films, Naqoyqatsi almost plays like propaganda. That having been said, it does stand on its own as an individual film. The same human concerns show through, Philip Glass' score has a more sedate feel this time around, and Yo-Yo-Ma's contribution is beautiful and elegaic. The DVD's extras include a panel discussion; I thought the most interesting topic that came up was the apparent paradox of using high-tech to criticize high-tech.

Overall, I think this is a film that has to be judged on its own merits; in certain ways it's too different from its predecessors to be judged by the same standards.

Rating:
Summary: AMAZING FILM
Review: WOW!! I'm surprised that a lot of you guys don't get it. It is far more in depth than the other two qatsi's. THe FILM IS NOT STRICTLY ABOUT WAR WITH OTHER COUINTRIES, YOU KNOW, THE TRADITIONAL SENSE OF WHAT WAR IS. Instead it shows the many different things that people fight wars with...environment, religion, social acceptance, technology, science, some political wars, etc. Furthermore it encompasses all of the things that fuel these wars, i.e. self gratification, convenience, patriotism, money/wealth, and all around pleasure. I am not knocking you who don't get it, but watch the movie with these things in mind and you may enjoy it more. I actually enjoy it more every time i watch it. Some of the best footage of all the qatsi's is in this film. The opening scene is amazing of the tower of babbal, if you don't know what it is or what its purpose in the movie is, think about it and you'll realize how perfect it is. AMAZING FILM!!! A+++++

Rating:
Summary: Best of the "quatsi" trilogy - a fitting ending (beginning?)
Review: I must admit that I cannot comment on the technical aspects of the DVD transfer. I am writing on the basis of my experience of this film in the theatre. That said, I would commend - and recommend - this film on several important aspects, especially as compared with the previous two films in the trilogy.

First, the score is amazing: mesmerizing, beautiful, and even at times serene. Philip Glass has matured (as have we all) since the release of "Koy"; instead of a barrage of 1/32 notes over and over, the music does not overwhelm either the visual images or the listner. By no means do I wish to criticize the "Koy" music as inferior work; I simply mean that Glass does not let technique drive the music, as I believe he does in some of his earlier works. Glass also gives Ma's cello breathing room, allowing Ma to provide the humanistic/humane counterpoint so essential in the juxtaposition of music and image in "Naqoyqatsi". Hands down, then, the aural experience of "Naqoyqatsi" equals or betters anything Glass has orchestrated.

This brings us to the visuals themselves. "Naqoyqatsi" is a true postmodern social critique, in that it uses the very images it wishes to critique in the critique itself. The lens is turned back on itself, as it were. Never has McLuen's idea of the "medium is the message" been better - or more effectively - illustrated than in this film. (In fact, the fact illustrated by Reggio that technology - the medium - comprises the world of messages in which we live is a key part of understanding the "Life as War" simile key to the point of the film.) Reggio's central theme is that technology has turned the world into Babel - hence the opening images of the film - a Babel of misunderstanding between cultures, nations, individuals and ourselves. Rather than bringing all these disparate elements together, technology has instead produced a violent fragmentation of human understanding, no matter how "beneficient" we believe it to be. Reggio uses digital images that perfectly demonstrate this point. For me, one very effective segment occurs later in the film: a barrage of cultural symbols (not words) that make up the mosaic of 21st century life spin dizzingly toward the viewer, approaching faster and faster until religious, political, economic/capitalistic and corporate symbols blur together and lose their unique, individual meanings. By showing these images in the medium (mostly digital) Reggio does, he performs a scathing critique (his "message") on the very danger posed by technology.

That brings us to the third and perhaps most brilliant aspect of "Naqoyqatsi". I notice that many peer reviewers criticize the movie for not addressing the theme "Life as War". If one goes solely by a count of "traditional" warfare images - mushroom clouds, battlefield scenes, and the like - then such criticism stands. However, the "war" Reggio/Glass want to condemn is the dislocation of self from self - oneself from another, oneself from nature, and oneself from one's own self - made possible through technology. "Life as War" as defined in this film, I believe, means that technology has the frightening potential (a potential already realized in many ways) to so fragment our existence that we lose our humanity. Technology threatens to create an ever-widening gulf of alienation between what is "real" and what is "fabricated", so much so that we lose touch with the humane life. Life instead becomes empty symbol and meaningless chatter and image. What little remains of human dignity and human cooperation lies in danger of further disintegration. This sets the stage for near-total dehumanization, where acts of killing, murder and maiming lose any reference point on a moral compass.

This is why Reggio must use the digital images as he does in "Naqoyqatsi": only by using those images can he demonstrate the alienating potential of technology. The critique becomes much stronger by using the images themselves rather than through some other approach.

For these reasons I rate this, the last of the trilogy, as the best of the three. I would heartily recommend this film to all concerned with what it does mean to live in the 21 century - and what it will mean to make life humane despite the siren call of technological abuse.

Rating:
Summary: Modern Fantasia Too Digital: Still, Great Philip Glass Music
Review: "Naqoyqatsi" is the last of the trilogy, I know, but I must confess that I have not seen the other two. So read the following review as such, coming from a beginner of Godfrey Reggio works. And I saw it in a theater with perfect Dolby sound system, which should be very helpful.

The film starts with a awe-inspiring image: you will see "The Tower of Babel" by Brueghel, with the solemn sound by Philip Glass. Then, the image changes to that of a huge, ruined building, around which the camera floats quietly. The message is clear, and eloquently told. And that music! The classic sound with booming baritone voice "NAQOYQATSI" is something that you never forget. I thought we are going to see a great thing, a cinematic masterpiece.

No, the film goes downhill from there. Not that steep downhill course, but still disappointing because the images rely on digital technology too much. About 80 percent of the images are stock footages from news report or archives (you might remember many of them, such as A-bomb experiments, LA riots, Apollo rockets, and many many others), and these images are all cut, warped, bleached, colored, and then again cut, and finally lined in a series of relentlessly digital-like sequences. The digitally-processed images are at first impressive, but soon we realize that they are nothing new.

And the political messages are dragging down the film, as if the film is broadcasting the opinions (about globalization, for instance) of some people. It's OK for you to be for or against some idea, but when you see it thrown in this casual way, everything becomes too superficial. Do you want to see waxworks of real-life people (who are alive), when the picture looks as if mocking them? I am not particularly pro- or anti-today's US government, and do not want the film to be either of them in so obvious way.

"Naqoyqatsi" or "Life as War" is in fact tour-de-force of Philip Glass, who gave one of the greatest soundtracks ever heard. Many say for nothing "Skip the film, buy the soundtrack" and their saying is truly justified. Actually, his music, surprisingly accesible and very powerful, is strongly recommended for music fans. Worth a look, but as far as its music goes, it is a must.

Rating:
Summary: Modern Fantasia Too Digital: Still, Great Philip Glass Music
Review: "Naqoyqatsi" is the last of the trilogy, I know, but I must confess that I have not seen the other two. So read the following review as such, coming from a beginner of Godfrey Reggio works. And I saw it in a theater with perfect Dolby sound system, which should be very helpful.

The film starts with a awe-inspiring image: you will see "The Tower of Babel" by Brueghel, with the solemn sound by Philip Glass. Then, the image changes to that of a huge, ruined building, around which the camera floats quietly. The message is clear, and eloquently told. And that music! The classic sound with booming baritone voice "NAQOYQATSI" is something that you never forget. I thought we are going to see a great thing, a cinematic masterpiece.

No, the film goes downhill from there. Not that steep downhill course, but still disappointing because the images rely on digital technology too much. About 80 percent of the images are stock footages from news report or archives (you might remember many of them, such as A-bomb experiments, LA riots, Apollo rockets, and many many others), and these images are all cut, warped, bleached, colored, and then again cut, and finally lined in a series of relentlessly digital-like sequences. The digitally-processed images are at first impressive, but soon we realize that they are nothing new.

And the political messages are dragging down the film, as if the film is broadcasting the opinions (about globalization, for instance) of some people. It's OK for you to be for or against some idea, but when you see it thrown in this casual way, everything becomes too superficial. Do you want to see waxworks of real-life people (who are alive), when the picture looks as if mocking them? I am not particularly pro- or anti-today's US government, and do not want the film to be either of them in so obvious way.

"Naqoyqatsi" or "Life as War" is in fact tour-de-force of Philip Glass, who gave one of the greatest soundtracks ever heard. Many say for nothing "Skip the film, buy the soundtrack" and their saying is truly justified. Actually, his music, surprisingly accesible and very powerful, is strongly recommended for music fans. Worth a look, but as far as its music goes, it is a must.

Rating:
Summary: Awful, Awful, Awful (the music is good)
Review: I just finished watching this film. This "qatsi" is a complete load of visual digital .... The only theme I can find in this film is "Given the digital technology to be creative and the power to really mess things up even the most talented people will totally mess things up." That's it; the proof is in suffering the 89 minutes of this movie. This film does an honor to those aspiring video artists that, incorrectly, believe post film/video digital processing software can do alchemy to their work. In the case of this film, (and forget completely about any possible other story or theme) it has turned some good images into the largest self-indulgent steamy, stinky plop of visual crap I've ever seen. I really am so disappointed in this movie I want to send it back to Amazon telling them that there is no possible way that the people listed in the credits (visual side) actually are responsible for this. .... This is a waste of time and money. The plus side is I have another Philip Glass soundtrack. If you buy this don't blame me! The other two movies are very good (visually and musically) and worthy of keeping.

Rating:
Summary: an astonishing masterwork
Review: Prepare to be thrown out of your seat.
Perhaps it took what we now think of as the perfection of digitalization to fully realize this film, as there was quite a delay between this, the end of the Qatsi trilogy, and the great Powaqqatsi.
But what a fine reward! Here we are treated to a non-stop cosmic roller coaster connecting the increasing de-humanization of our daily world with the ever exploding advance of the Machines and how they rule our lives. And how we are so lazy that we allow them to do it. Here, I, believe is the "war" that is the Naqoy, not armies nor the madness of Man.
In my experience, no other director is so expertly adept at this unique style of juxtapositional montage. You will know what I mean when a smiling human face intantly and seamlessly transforms into a galactic cloud, or the blast of a thermonuclear weapon. Or the flight of bombs suddenly merged into the exercise of giraffes.
But, unfortunately, Godfrey Reggio's films are not for everyone. This stuff is 'art gratia artis'; art for art's sake.
His films, few and far between, are subtle in their message, even though the director claims that there really is no message to be implied.
But none of those arguments matter. The imagery is what matters, and it is unparalled by any other known director, living or dead.
If you have read this, then you already know about "Baraka". Another brilliant film in the same vent as the Qatsi series, although a little more human, and intensely spiritual. But differently astonishing in its own right.
So get the movie, or all of them, prepare yourself for a different, non-linear film experience with NO INTERRUPTIONS!!!!

Rating:
Summary: Good, but not quite up to its predecessors...
Review: The first two films of the Qatsi trilogy were made up of organic images accompanied by the music of Philip Glass. Astonishing achievements, they are, mostly because of this. The use of "found" images to tell a story - without dialog or a three-act screenplay - is quite an accomplishment.

So, in the third installment, what was left to achieve? The opposite: to tell a story with synthetic images, but also without reliance on dialog, characters, or formal dramatic structure. A purely abstract film, in other words, where every image could be controlled precisely. The result is Godfrey Reggio's Naqoyqatsi, which, in my opinion, is not quite abstract enough.

When relying on "real" images (i.e., representational) exclusively, you have to find metaphors and make connections indirectly. Koyaanisqatsi's most powerful example of this is a shot toward the end where we see an elderly person's hand emerge from an endless row of hospital beds seen obliquely so that they are nothing more than diagonal lines of metal and plastic. It's a haunting moment - humanity reaching out from the suffocating cocoon of technology it has woven about itself; reaching out for contact with something real.

But the computer-enhanced (and often computer generated) work in Naqoyqatsi goes for the obvious most of the time. Instead of oblique metaphors, we get transliterations: actual ones and zeros flying around the screen to represent information overload; corporate logos in 3-D zooming at us to tell us how pervasive they are - complete with the obvious Cheap Shot at Corporate Greed: the dreaded Enron logo; dollar signs raining on stock traders at the NYSE. And so on.

It's mostly clumsy. We even have a double-image of Dolly the cloned sheep intercut with shots of human eggs being artificially fertilized, followed by a big digital pull-back of lots and lots of naked babies, who are really the same four or five babies repeated endlessly. There is a certain aesthetic beauty in the work - the patterns are reminiscent of Salvador Dali's lattices of insects becoming clock hands; the periodic morphs, of his penchant for landscapes becoming faces. But as a whole, these images lack the elegance that marked the first two Qatsis. They're just too obvious.

That being said, Philip Glass' score is sublime. It's among his better works, eschewing strict minimalist formalism, while maintaining a minimalist kind of simplicity. It features some of the best Neo-Romantic orchestral writing I have heard in some time - a great counterpoint to the cold, industrial images of the film.

For the Completist, I recommend Naqoyqatsi. It's by no means a bad film. But for someone unfamiliar with the Qatsi aesthetic, I wouldn't start with this one. You need a grounding in the artistic sensibilities of the first two films to appreciate what does - and does not - work in this one.

Rating:
Summary: Music Great, but the Movie Absolutely Sucked
Review: This movie is the weakest of all of the "qatsi" movies. I've watched it 3 times now and it still has no rhyme or reason to it. It looks like they made it because Philip Glass had written the final score of the trilogy and they just a slapped together a movie to go with the music, which is a shame because the music is excellent.

I gave Koyaanisqatsi 5 stars, Powaqqatsi 3 stars, but this I give this 1 star all just for music. Save yourself some money and buy the CD, which is fantastic.