Koyaanisqatsi

The next film I shall review is perhaps the most unique and unusual film I have ever seen. Introduced to it in my first year of university by a lecturer, it is a film that uses no dialogue and instead relies on a series of images coupled with music in order to tell a story. That film is Godfrey Reggio’s Koyaanisqatsi.

For a film with no dialogue one might argue that an hour and a half is too much of a chore to sit through. Although this may be true about the film’s rather misguided sequel Powaaqatsi it couldn’t be more wrong when concerning this film. Koyaanisqatsi is, in a word, exhilarating. From the long opening shots of the Grand Canyon of Utah, to the sand dunes of the Nevada desert, to the staggering sights of lakes and mountains, the open 20 minutes of the film draw us into understanding the natural beauty of the world in which we live and the vastness of the USA as a country. These images gain a great deal of power when accompanied by the music of Philip Glass.

After much natural beauty the film suddenly cut to a shot of a digger in which we get the first sense of what the message behind this film is; that nature is beautiful and that manmade revolution is defacing it. Throughout the film we see images of ran down building and public congestion. The film even culminates with a rocket taking off into space then blowing up and falling from grace as it reaches the upper atmosphere. Reggio’s ethos here is clearly that he believes in ‘evolution over revolution’, that man was made for this earth, to remain on this earth as it’s keepers, an earth that was once beautiful but has been destroyed by pollution and manmade monstrosities. It also appears evident that the rocket scene that culminates this film implies that mankind must not leave this world (to which I personally disagree, I support the space program), that mankind must remain here and maintain this world.

Perhaps the most genius thing about this film however is that it deliberately contradicts itself. As we the audience are shown sweeping images of Manhattan we can also truly understand that manmade things can be just as stunning as nature. This shows us that the manmade revolution can be just as wonderful as it is terrible and that there are two sides to every coin. Ironically I feel that the city based segments of this film are all the more impressive as we get to witness every minor aspects of city life within New York City, a place that I visited that will now stick with me for the rest of my life.

Reggio uses a number of impressive camera techniques, such as leaving the cameras running for hours whilst filming at about 1 shot per every other second making the lights on moving traffic wiz past one after another. This is also used for shots of clouds and the moon moving at a rapid rate as well as the masses of people that fill the city. I can only begin to imagine the amount of time and effort that went into filming and editing these sequences and finding the perfect married of image with Philip Glass’ music score, a music score that fills the most dynamic scenes of the film with ecstasy.

Now I’m not a music buff, I have good taste, I know a good song when I hear one and I know what makes a film score effective but if you ask me to put my musical theories into words I may struggle so I shall use just one word to describe Philip Glass’ score; relentless. It is a type of music that has gone onto inspire such modern indie bands as Muse and was also re-used effectively for the superhero film Watchmen. This goes to show that elements of this film have proven influential even if it isn’t a well know film.

I feel there is little left for me to say in perhaps the most technical sounding of all my reviews other than Koyaanisqatsi is mesmerising. It goes to show that not all avante garde cinemas is downright stupid (a la Andy Warhol) and can instead be impressive.

5 STARS