And now, as John Cleese would put it, time for something completely different. Here’s a film that won’t be for all tastes, particularly those that prefer their motion media with strong narrative—but for those that want something you could both chill to and give you something to ponder on, here’s a ‘tonal poem’ in what some might consider pure cinema format. Here’s my take on Godfrey Reggio’s Koyaanisqatsi, forty-odd years on.
Named after a specific Hopi term, there is certainly something deliberate to the format of the film here—starting out with Native artwork of that tribe, before giving us a montage of almost synth-choral-drone music alongside images of rockets in flight, cities bustling with activity, media of the time, all of it often edited, time-lapsed, and given on occasion rather elaborate shots for a relatively niche film in the early eighties.
There were films that attempted such similar things before, like Andy Warhol’s Empire, which I wouldn’t really commend unless you have truly absolutely nothing better to do. What makes Koyaanisqatsi stand out from that is the breadth and style—between flashes of everyday street life in the early Reagan era, we have those somewhat surreal images and panoramas of cities at night, which always strike an appeal to me, emerging as kaleidoscopes of stretched headlights and neon. You have demolitions captured in slow-motion, air force jets ascending, even nuclear tests, and eventually, pans over deserts, dams, and lakes--all blending gently from one to the other.
The key thing is that we never linger too long—and with that constant change, even without any real plot, attention can still be held. It’s certainly not random—there are visual allusions comparing the silicon webs of circuit board to spreading city layouts, a metaphor that funnily enough even Disney’s Tron did at just about the same time. From hustle and bustle, to the creation of production lines to destruction, from city to natural vistas…you can certainly see it as painting something about the madness of modernity, to simple dualities, to anything else you could think of.
The ending seems to suggest something about an inevitability of destruction, if you want to go all the way—a reminder that this was made when it was perfectly reasonable to assume that the world could enflame any day now. Perhaps not all things have changed since.
Or, if you want, there’s enough here just to chill out to. It’s certainly a film that is nothing but pure vibes, and if you’re willing to match that vibe, there’s more to digest than you may initially think. And for those that strikes a chord too—I certainly say check it out.
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