Koyaanisqatsi ***** (1982, director Godfrey Reggio) – Classic Movie Review 2750

Director Godfrey Reggio points his time-lapse cameras at America in the breath-taking 1982 documentary Koyaanisqatsi that stuns the eye and brain, and provides a totally hypnotic experience.

Reggio comes up with an apparently endless sequence of gorgeous, provocative, sometimes startling images that accumulate into an extraordinary personal view of the way we are living ‘a life out of balance’. Focusing on nature and humanity and their relationship, it is uniquely absorbing, beautifully filmed and overflowing with remarkable images.

Without any narration or narrative, the film relies on the extraordinary accumulative power of Philip Glass’s equally hypnotic, typically repetitive score, which proves the perfect musical accompaniment to Reggio’s images.

Seeing it on a big screen is an enormous plus, but it does still work its magic on TV. There is no need to bring anything to it, just clear you mind, sit back and succumb to the brilliant experience of it all.

Despite the lack of narrative, the film is not just a sequence of random images but has a screenplay, written by Reggio with Ron Fricke, Michael Hoenig and Alton Walpole. In English and Hopi. The Native American title word Koyaanisqatsi means ‘unbalanced life’ or ‘life out of balance’ and the film looks at the conflict between the beautiful natural world and the less appealing man-made world in our way life that it proposes is out of balance.

The title card at the end reads: ‘Translation of the Hopi Prophecies sung in the film: “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.”‘

The 6’ 7” Reggio, who spent 14 years in silence and prayer while studying to be a monk, is prominent in the film world for his QATSI trilogy. Reggio’s sequels: Powaqqatsi (1988) and Naqoyqatsi (2002).

© Derek Winnert 2015 Classic Movie Review 2750

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