Koyaanisqatsi - Life Out of Balance

Average customer rating:

Not horrible, but Baraka is considerably better.

Koooooyaaaaanisqatsiiiiiii

More than a Film, An Experience!

Thought provoking as well as highly visually entertaining! Should entertainment be this frightening?

Meh.

Koyaanisqatsi - Life Out of Balance
Starring: Philip Glass
Director: Godfrey Reggio
Manufacturer: MGM (Video & DVD)
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

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ASIN: B000068OCS
Release Date: 2002-09-17

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First-time filmmaker Godfrey Reggio's experimental documentary from 1983--shot mostly in the desert Southwest and New York City on a tiny budget with no script, then attracting the support of Francis Ford Coppola and George Lucas and enlisting the indispensable musical contribution of Philip Glass--delighted college students on the midnight circuit and fans of minimalism for many years. Meanwhile, its techniques, merging cinematographer Ron Fricke's time-lapse shots (alternately peripatetic and hyperspeed) with Glass's reiterative music (from the meditative to the orgiastic)--as well as its ecology-minded imagery--crept into the consciousness of popular culture. The influence of Koyaanisqatsi, or "life out of balance," has by now become unmistakable in television advertisements, music videos, and, of course, in similar movies such as Fricke's own Chronos and Craig McCourry's Apogee. Reggio shot a sequel, Powaqqatsi (1988), and is planning to complete the trilogy with Naqoyqatsi. Koyaanisqatsi provides the uninitiated the chance to see where it all started--along with an intense audiovisual rush. --Robert Burns Neveldine

Description

Prepare to experience a truly remarkable filma cinematic masterpiece so extraordinary that it regales the senses, stimulates the mind and actually 'redefines the potential of filmmaking (The Hollywood Reporter). Celebrated director Godfrey Reggio, innovative cinematographer Ron Fricke and Golden Globe-winning* composer Philip Glass have created a 'spellbinding [film] so rich in beauty and detail that with each viewing it becomes a new and different film (Leonard Maltin). Unique profound mesmerizing and thought-provoking (Boxoffice), Koyaanisqatsi contrasts the tranquil beauty of nature with the frenzied hum of contemporary urban society. Uniting breathtaking imagery with a hauntingly evocative, award-winning score, it is original and fascinating (People) one of the greatest films of all time (Uncut). *1998: Score (with Burkhard Dallwitz), The Truman Show

Customer Reviews:

Not horrible, but Baraka is considerably better........2007-08-17

I would probably give this 2 and a half stars, if that were possible. I didn't hate it, but it isn't one I'd watch again. It was tempting to stop watching two thirds of the way through, actually. The music got downright annoying in its repetitiveness -- to the point we muted it. Then, the imagery got to be so plain and lacking artistic angles that we decided it was a film to be watched when we wanted to get sleepy. We had been planning on watching this whole group of DVDs. This was the first one we watched, and it made us hesitant about all the others. However, since we saw The Monkey Chant on YouTube and discovered it was a segment from "Baraka," we decided to go ahead and watch "Baraka." It is a much, much better selection of both music and imagery than this film delivers.

Koooooyaaaaanisqatsiiiiiii.......2007-08-13

The first time I watched this I thought it was a pretentious film and kind of blew it off. I was pretty intrigued by the film's later parts with the fast motion people, and the strange people looking into the camera. The Hopi prophecies in the end blew my mind too.

Many years later those images still stuck in my mind. I had to watch it again. I'm glad I did.

It's not really a movie, there's no plot, characters, or dialog, instead it is an experimental art film. It is a stunning look at human life from an almost higher intelligence. Using time-lapse photography mixed with some creative camera work we are given the chance to see human life from an outsider's point of view.

The film begins with a lot of natural photography mountains cloud, etc. The whole while, Koooooyaaaanisqatsiiiii is being chanted in the background. Next we're shown a lot of land development equipment. Then we're shown a lot of urban photography with plenty of fast motion cars and buildings. Next is my favorite part with all the weird fast motion people.

The concept of the film is supposed to be a word of warning about what the human race has come to: using the Earth's natural resources, atomic bombs, fighter jets, mass media, video games, fast food, etc etc etc. Of course if we believe we are really doomed there's not much more we can do but enjoy life while we can. And for me, that means watching this movie. I'm getting ready to pop it in again.

More than a Film, An Experience!.......2007-08-12

The images and music tell a truth beyond words about our modern way of life. This unusual film is as timely today as the day it was made. When it was over, we felt that we were returning from a journey. Highly recommended!

Thought provoking as well as highly visually entertaining! Should entertainment be this frightening?.......2007-08-05

If you can show a little patience for the first 18 minutes of this film, it will suddenly become very entertaining as well as informative about our world. It's a totally wordless collage of great camera effects which I wouldn't doubt, probably set the stage for using time-lapse filming and dramatic slow motion effects of the simple things that we may have never put in such perspective before.

After the initial start of the film, we see a world before man has put his hands to it. We see God's creation as it can be today, as it was probably a million years ago. Philip Glass offers a great musical score to the visuals of this entire film. You see the beauty of the natural earth, and then suddenly, we see man starting to cut into it, build on it, expand man's existence upon it, and definitely alter the beauty of what it once was. But, do we have a choice? Technology must prevail and it certainly does as this film shows you. But how much technology is enough? How much is too much? As we continue to grow and take from the earth, and deplete our earthly resources everyday, we are also returning our manufactured waste to the earth, which is in turn, polluting our earth. But, what can we do?

Man is destined to destroy itself and our mother earth and although it's nobody's fault, we have no choice but to either bury our waste or burn it. Neither one benefits our planet. This film of Koyaanisqatsi (filmed in 1983) inadvertently shows us the effects of "global warming" even before we gave this earthly disease a name.

Watch this film, and then watch Al Gore's "The Inconvenient Truth" and hopefully someone with some tangible clout can stand up and make a difference for our future. Will our grandchildren be wearing masks to breathe and skin protection from the sun? That appears to be the direction that we are going. Godfrey Reggio saw this even back in the 1970's. This movie of Koyaanisqatsi warned us nearly 25 years ago.

If anything though, this film is a lot of fun to watch. And the music is great! Also check out Godfrey Reggio's other two films "Powaqqatsi" and "Naqoyqatsi". And also check out "Baraka", a film from the same cameraman Ron Fricke filmed just a few years ago that almost consolidates many of the ideas that you see in Godfrey Reggio's work. "Powaqqatsi" has a fabulous soundtrack from Philip Glass also.

Meh........2007-07-10

Koyaanisqatsi (Godfrey Reggio, 1983)

I've been waiting over twenty years to see Koyaanisqatsi, and now I finally have. From what I've been reading, I get the idea that perhaps I should have held out for a big-screen showing (or an IMAX showing, since it seems there's a grass-roots movement for an IMAX translation); I keep hearing that it loses a lot in translation, and I can see that. It's a movie that's full of sweeping landscapes, brilliant cinematography, and the kind of soundtrack that begs to be heard on the kind of half-million-dollar sound system you find in upscale movie houses. That, however, is not to say that renting the DVD will not give you any sense of those things; like most lost-in-translation cases, what's really missing here is the majesty of the thing. The basic idea still comes through loud and clear. And I'll tell you right now--despite having no actors, no script, no real structure (Reggio cut and pasted the movie together according to the way Philip Glass had structured his awe-inspiring soundtrack)--Koyyanisqatsi is an unabashed message movie, and a great deal of whether you like it or not will depend on your reaction to its message. Those of you who know me, and know anything about Koyyanisqatsi, can probably recite the rest of this review in your head without actually having to read it.

In short: Koyyanisqatsi is beautiful, beautiful propaganda. Looking at it a full quarter century after its release, my first thought was, in all honesty, "what makes this different than the kinds of movies you see in museums and the like?" (cf. Sedona: The Spirit of Wonder.) The answer becomes obvious about ten minutes into the film: it's the quality of Ron Fricke (Baraka)'s incredible camerawork. (Remember that this was Fricke's first feature-length project, and it's even more impressive.) It takes about ten minutes because the first section of any substance in the film takes that long to show up; the first sequence is basic shots of the same natural wonders we've seen a thousand times (in fact, IMDB reports in its trivia section that one of the mountain scenes was "leftover footage" from Kubrick's The Shining). Now, I know a lot of people are going to criticize that statement, because it means I missed the point of that sequence. No, I didn't miss the point. If you want to show the majesty and grandeur of nature, there are certainly better ways to do it than showing stock footage, especially when you've got Ron Fricke doing your cinematography. I mean, come on, is there any American-made Western from the fifties and sixties that doesn't have grand, sweeping pans of red rock country?

Then we get to human beings scurrying over the landscape like tool-using ants, and we get to the body of Fricke's footage (there are still some stock shots interspersed, but they don't take up as much room). What you see in these pictures will depend entirely on your viewpoint coming into the film. Is the scene of two policemen and some EMTs lifting a passed out (or dead) man onto a stretcher in New York City a scene conveying the horrors of humanity (in the dead man), or a scene of professional servicepeople admirably doing their jobs? How about the scene of a (presumably) husband and wife eating a meal, sitting at a table in a mall food court, while people stream around them? While it's filmed in the same fast-motion as many of the other human scenes, are they part of the problem, or an island of calm? Or, earlier on, a scene of a fight pilot standing in front of his plane. You can tell from the scenes that surround this one that we're supposed to view this man and his instrument of destruction with horror. But how does that scan with the brave, slightly humble look on his face?

Simple: it doesn't, unless you're willing to work the edges a little to get the piece to fit into the hole.

The fact that Koyyanisqatsi is slanted should be obvious even to the most idealistic devotee of the film. To be fair (and to address my points above), it's probably less so than any fictional environmentalist movie I've seen (I'm thinking specifically of Prophecy here--Frankenheimer's '79 ecomonster flick, not the Walken/Mortensen fallen-angel amusement). It leaves more room for interpretation, though I'm assuming that its target audience mostly has a `preaching to the choir' mindset. All this by way of saying that even if you're a member of the pave-the-earth society, there are a lot of pretty pictures here, Philip Glass' soundtrack is as wonderful as the rest of Glass' work, and you might come up with some interesting points when debating the fanatics. Recommended, though I'm not sure it would stand up to a long series of repeated rewatches. ***

Koyaanisqatsi - Life Out of Balance / Powaqqatsi - Life in Transformation / Naqoyqatsi - Life As War (3 Pack)

Average customer rating:

Koyaanisqatsi - Life Out of Balance / Powaqqatsi - Life in Transformation / Naqoyqatsi - Life As War (3 Pack)
Director: Godfreey Reggio
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

General | Documentary | Genres | DVD | Video

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Product Features:

Widescreen
Language: English
Trailer (s)
3 Disc Set

ASIN: B000QWA9LC

Product Description

Koyaanisqatsi - Life Out of Balance: Prepare to experience a truly remarkable film--a cinematic masterpiece so extraordinary that it regales the senses, stimulates the mind and actually "redefines the potential of filmmaking". Celebrated director Godfrey Reggio, innovative cinematographer Ron Fricke and Golden Globe winning composer Philip Glass have created a "spellbinding film so rich in beauty and detail that with each viewing it becomes a new and different film". ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Powaqqatsi - Life in Transformation: Hailed by audiences and critics around the world as "mesmerizing", this second installment of writer/director Godfrey Reggio's apocalyptic "qatsi" trilogy is "quite simply one of the most magnificent visual and aural spectacles ever made"! Combining stunning cinematography with the exquisite music of award-winning composer Philip Glass, Powaqqatsi is a "breathtaking experience working on many levels... emotional, spiritual, intellectual and aesthetic"! Bold, haunting and epic in scale, this extraordinary film calls into question everything we think we know about contemporary society. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Naqoyqatsi - Life As War: Miramax Home Entertainment and Oscar-winning filmmaker Steven Soderbergh present Naqoyqatsi - Life As War, from filmmaker Godfrey Reggio, in collaboration with composer Phillip Glass, whose original score features renowned cellist Yo-Yo Ma. In this cinematic concert -- the concluding film of the Qatsi Trilogy preceded by the critically acclaimed Koyaanisqatsi and Powaqqatsi -- mesmerizing images reanimated from everyday reality, then visually altered with state-of-the-art digital techniques, chronicle the shift from a world organized by the principles of nature to one dominated by technology, the synthetic, and the virtual.

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