Evies Blog

When someone asks me what my common movies are, I usually give them a fairly predictable list: 2001, Citizen Kane, The Seven Samurai, and so on. By the time I salvage to #10 or so, I add, “Oh, and ‘Koyaanisqatsi.’”

That stops them wintry. Most people, even folks who believe themselves film buffs, have never heard of “Koyaanisqatsi.” Most of them can’t even exclaim it. (No defective there; I acquire tripped up on Ukranian names myself. No reason to ask them to come by a Hopi word perfectly the first time.) When I insist them about it, though, my have eyes light up and my hands disappear and my face twists in all different ways. And they recognize that, and they catch inviting, and then they too want to sight this astonishing movie that has no residence, no dialogue and no characters. It is one of the most incredible 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 mature dwelling. 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 genuine time, but always seen in a curiously wide-eyed and totally undiluted scheme.

Buy,Download, Or Stream Koyaanisqatsi / Powaqqatsi! Click Here

The film may not have a site, but it has a account. It opens in the American desert, where the hand of man rarely intrudes, and them moves by degrees into man’s world. What I gain most curious is that the movie’s editing and camerawork often seem to be doing two things at once: we glance 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 trustworthy as the buttes in the desert, and one of the movie’s treasures is that it makes this argument almost despite itself.

The gradual sections of the film grow faster in editing and in presentation. Philip Glass’s derive - sometimes expressionless, sometimes swiftly, always mesmerizing - both illuminates and stands aside from the movie; it can be heard on its maintain, as something quite apart from the images, or it can be seen as the Greek chorus for the film’s “memoir.” This kind of duality runs through the film: we can examine it as a relatively straight “visual poem” in which the movie’s title — “life out of balance” — is depicted in a relatively straightforward contrivance. Or we can gaze beyond that and look 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 certain that he considers the film to be both polemical and non-polemical: “KOYAANISQATSI is not so mighty about something, nor does it have a specific meaning or value … So while I might have this or that arrangement 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 acknowledge. 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 produce. So in the sense of art, the meaning of KOYAANISQATSI is whatever you wish to accomplish of it. This is its power.”

Buy,Download, Or Stream Koyaanisqatsi / Powaqqatsi! Click Here

“Koyaanisqatsi” currently exists in a just limbo which has not been properly resolved. Copies of the movie on DVD are available directly from the movie’s web position…, and the funds from purchases of the film aid 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 design that “Koyaanisqatsi” brought with it.

….as another reviewer has said, KOYAANISQATSI is CROPPED. I maintain the small edition DVD that was sold as a fundraiser around a year ago by the Institute for Regional Education (IRE) and it is in 4:3. The fresh MGM so-called “widescreen” release simply adds dim bars to the top and bottom of the camouflage, with NO extra width shown- the other reviewer is 100% accurate! I compared the IRE DVD with the fresh MGM commercial release on two DVD players at the same time, and the size of each record is exactly the same, but the MGM release has shadowy bars blocking Ron Fricke’s cinematography. The bars purchase away 2 inches from the top and bottom of the cloak of my 32″ TV, or 4 inches of report height total. I care for widescreen movies, but purposely blocking out what was originally filmed is RIDICULOUS. KOY was originally filmed in 4:3, not widescreen.

These films are the two greatest combinations of music and film ever made- it’s impartial a shame to search for KOY treated so poorly. Nice interviews with Godfrey Reggio and Philip Glass and cheap mark quiet makes it a must-buy. All we can hope for is maybe a “special edition” in the future that’s done suitable as this release is apparently selling graceful well.

Right now, the best KOY sound is found on the laserdisc, and the best describe is found on the dinky edition IRE DVD which is no longer available. I’m so jubilant I didn’t sell it! It’s a priceless collector’s item now!

I haven’t yet checked the fresh MGM DVD of POWAQQATSI compared to my VHS POW videotape as far as the dim bars taking away characterize from the original- but the recent POW DVD indeed has an wonderful recount quality and the soundtrack fared very well in the conversion to Dolby Digital- it sounds honorable. KOY sounds muffled and too rolled off in the highs.

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