Koyaanisqatsi

Koyaanisqatsi is an interesting film about the destructive tendencies of human beings and their impact on the earth. Prior to watching the film, I learned that the name "Koyaanisqatsi" is Hopi for "unbalanced life." Based on the title, I assumed that the film would have some sort of politically driven environmental message. I was also aware that the film used some form of time-lapse or stop motion and that it was made in 1982. Right before starting the film, I read that it did not contain any dialog or narration, only music -- by Phillip Glass, no less. I had learned about Phillip Glass years ago in a dance class and I knew that he had written obscure avant-garde musical ballets. I figured that the film would be interesting but I still wasn't quite sure what to expect overall.

The film begins with long, slow panoramas of natural landscapes:  canyons, mountains, fields of flowers, a waterfall, a cave. The music is also slower here, matching pace with the imagery. Then, there's a scene that appears almost distorted at first, and it takes a while to see what it is. At first it looks like snow; then ash falling from a volcano. As the camera zooms out, something distinctly man-made and mechanical appears in the bottom left of the frame. Zoom out a little more and a rocket is revealed, mid take-off. This is the transition from calm, tranquil natural earth to the industrial wasteland that we've created.

The shots are slower at first, increasing slightly from the initial sequence, showing oil refineries, the pipe line, a glass building. As the speed of the film and the music increase in tandem, so does the intensity of the images. All of these things culminate with dramatic shots of collapsing buildings, explosions, missiles, and the dropping of an atom bomb. I had expected the industrialization but not the images of war and weapons. This was a slightly different take than the film Manufactured Landscapes that we had watched at the beginning of the semester.

After all of the dramatic explosions and implosions, the film shifts to very rapid time-lapse sequences of people doing various activities:  the line at the subway terminal; workers at an Oscar Meyer factory packaging hotdogs and bologna; customers at a grocery store checkout. Then there are the ceaseless images of cars -- cars in parking lots, cars in production, cars on four-lane highways, cars packed like sardines in rush hour traffic, cars in the city at night. There are also many scenes of people walking about in swarms, as if being herded by some unseen force. I did notice that during this portion of the film, the music in the background almost sounded like bees in a beehive. I found this to be particularly effective as a commentary on the insignificance of the individual.

While the message was clear and the imagery was striking, I felt myself losing interest after the first half hour or so. Perhaps this is because those images have become so ubiquitous that we're now desensitized. Koyaanisqatsi was released over 30 years ago. In the early '80s, perhaps questions of the environment and the impact that humans have on the world was still fairly new. The imagery would have been more shocking and unfamiliar. However, today we're used to seeing stills and video of the changes we've made to the earth. To me, the movies message was dragged out a bit longer than necessary. It might have been more effective had it expanded to more complex concepts through the progression of the film. I felt that the first movie that we watched at the beginning of the semester, Manufactured Landscapes, told a similar message but with superior delivery.

Although I wasn't too keen on the film itself (or the repetitive, arpeggiating Phillip Glass music), I did find the cinematography quite interesting. I thought it was very effective how the image sequences increased in technological complexity as the video itself increased in speed. It helped give a sense of ease to the natural landscapes, while the factories, shopping centers, and city streets appeared more frantic and stressful. However, I think that some dialog or narration may have helped to break up the monotony.