Koyaanisqatsi (Life in Turmoil)
 

no actors
no storyline
no dialogue

Koyaanisqatsi (1983) features short, beautiful film clips of nature that slowly give way to film clips of man and our various technologies and results on the environment. Our clearly negative results. The film on it's surface is simply a study in contrast of before and after human interferance on Earth. Under that, it screams with many deep philosophical and moral issues that have been wrestled with for centuries. The political aspects blend flawlessly with the stylistic qualities that are expertly scored by Philip Glass (note: the score is quite redundant, but somehow appropriate).

Neeways, I just had the opportunity of seeing...experiencing this for the first time. I sat unable to think of anything else for the entirity of the film and for several hours afterward.

So who's seen it? Who loves it? Who hates it? Why?

This was a trilogy:

http://www.koyaanisqatsi.org/

KOYAANISQATSI: life out of balance
POWAQQATSI: life in transformation
NAQOYQATSI: life as war


The films are gorgeous. I do love them but had to sit through the first two too many times when I worked at a Rep Cinema...

I love them because they manage to tell a story (a very encompassing story) of our planet and they do so without dialogue.

i enjoyed the visuals in all three--but i also found that they are better with the sound off. philip glass: why does he keep getting gigs again?

He has the same agent as Randy Newman :confused:

Did they make you think?

Dude, Phillip Glass rocks. I was exposed to these movies because of him and I think his music really adds a lot to the atmosphere of the films. They're great :)

I'm a huge fan of Phillip Glass. I've heard his score for this, and enjoyed it. I never thought much about the movie, but I may track it (and the 2nd and 3rd) down now to watch it.

Philip glass is a genius with this stuff. I saw KOYAANISQATSI When i was in high school. I think that the only two people who were interested in the film were my me and my teacher. The rest of my class was just a bunch of idiots.
Anyways, The part I like most about this film was the music. The way that he composed the music, and the precision of the orchestra was amazing. The fact that they could play the same frames, over and over and over again and make each one sound exactly alike is the wonder of this film. I loved it.!

Great great film. On so many levels. Not only is it good looking, it's such a brilliant concept, a catalogue of Earth, perhaps the only films that ever really achieved a sense of global proportions in my opinion.

I was this close to picking up koyaanisqatsi/powaggatsi double pack at Best Buy, when I heard about Naqoyqatsi.As soon as I see this a trilgoy set on DVD, I'm gonna get it.

Haven't seen any of them yet.

i dont know, folks--glass hs been working the same basic appraoch the same basic material for years. i suppose your take on him is a simple function of how much of the same thing you have encountered. i will say, though, that the first time i saw the first film, i reacted quite differently to it. when i saw it again earlier this year, i had to turn the sound off.

visually, the film is quite another matter.

: ) Its a gorgeous film that means so many things to so many people.

I showed it to a few friends a few months ago and one of them noticed that there was a flash of tits in the television ad sequence.

ive watched Koyaanisqatsi a few times
blows my mind ever time i see it.

i cant even put the film in to words...
i shudder to think about it

Saw it many years ago in college when my mind was still open to such ideas. It was kinda "meh" at the time. I'd probably hate it now, being old and jaded and all.

I love the show, but I do need to be in the right frame of mind to watch it.

As for the music... I can see why people can be turned off by it. There is a lot of theme repetition, and odd meters that really run counter to the 4/4 time music typically produced today. I love the repetition, though. You have to sit and immerse yourself in the music to feel out the minor differences to each iteration. I think it's the audio equivalent of those 3D pictures you have to cross your eyes to see properly. When it clicks, you experience art with depth and texture to it, but if you can't "see" it, then you'll think it's nonsense.