Koyaanisqatsi could just well be the biggest student film ever made. I don’t describe it as such with a pejorative intention: that description simply feels the most apt for a movie that consists entirely of dialogue-less photography and ethereal electronic music. The whole thing makes me think of a freshman who just got his hands on a Bolex and decided to go explore campus with an iTunes mix already in mind... except, you know, on the macro level. The fact that it was directed by a guy who was mostly involved in public works and serious seminary studies before certainly adds to the "inspired amateur" quality of it.
Dip your ladle into the bowl and take a sip...
How, pray tell, does this weird art house movie fit into “Speed Week?” Well, there’s a copious amount of sped-up time-lapse photography, for one. Koyaanisqatsi makes the screen the retina of your mind’s eye (as they’d say in Videodrome) and lets you zoom through every inch of the developed and undeveloped world (circa 1982) like some ectoplasmic projection of consciousness soaring through the astral plane. If you watched it on a seat that could twist and turn, and maybe even pitch and roll a little, it’d feel like one of those mild motion rides at EPCOT. Like I mentioned, there’s no plot. The only arc of the movie concerns the steady progression from slow, seemingly-virgin landscapes to the hustle and buzz of an active urban sprawl.
This was “presented” by Francis Ford Coppola towards the end of its production because he hoped his name would get it in front of more eyes. Godfrey Reggio, the director, went on to make a trilogy “qatsi” movies that were similarly chaperoned by big Hollywood names. George Lucas produced Powaqqatsi, which was more-or-less a sizzle reel of abject poverty in the third world, and Steven Soderberg produced Naqoyqatsi, which played like a nasty Photoshop collage in motion. Considering how similar Koyaanisqatsi is to Lucas' film school material, I always figured that this is what he has in mind whenever he talks about wanting to get back to "more abstract and artistic" work.
Every seeming first-of-a-kind has its own forebears if you dig just a little deeper. To whit, this feels like a modern, maximalist remake of Man With the Movie Camera. You know, that 1920s, black & white Soviet doc that's on the syllabus of every film studies class ever designed; the one that's basically a long, joyous tribute to industry and urban life according to Leninist principles. If you really want to break down the differences, Vertov's little movie was a celebration of technology (remember the stop-motion camera creature?) while Koyaanisqatsi could be very easily be construed as a condemnation of it. Or maybe a celebration, too. “Life out of balance” sub-title notwithstanding, Reggio intentionally leaves any message open to your own interpretation.
I haven’t included any clips in this feature because MGM’s actually made the entire movie--all 90 or so minutes of it--available for free on You Tube. That’s right, you don’t have to get up and pick this off the shelf of your nearest you video repository. You don’t even have to put it on your instant que. It’s right there below, just waiting for you.
If there’s some irony to be had in modern, instantly-gratifying technology presenting this meditation on the speed of progress to you, then there’s perhaps even greater irony to be had in the fact that the Mexican Santa Claus was the last movie offered in this fashion.
Anyway, enjoy it, and just try to stop yourself from singing along to theme song...
Check out some previous "Weirdies" below...
- WELCOME TO WEIRD: Videodrome
- WELCOME TO WEIRD: The Holy Mountain
- WELCOME TO WEIRD: Bubba Ho-Tep
- WELCOME TO WEIRD: Santa Claus
- WELCOME TO WEIRD: Moonwalker
- WELCOME TO WEIRD: Death Race 2000
- WELCOME TO WEIRD: A Scanner Darkly
- WELCOME TO WEIRD: Buckaroo Banzai
- WELCOME TO WEIRD: Twelve Monkeys
- WELCOME TO WEIRD: Dark City
- WELCOME TO WEIRD: The Yellow Submarine
- WELCOME TO WEIRD: Shadow of the Vampire
- WELCOME TO WEIRD: Return to Oz
And also the 1982 aesthetic is eating away a hole in my brain,
and the micro-chip graphic match is frighteningly surreal.
In parts it kind of feels like an indictment on humanity, but that may be my own
Rorschach interpretation. Especially with the Challenger explosion at the very end, as if saying "you've come too far too fast and you're too overconfident and this is the consequence". Wasn't expecting to watch the whole thing, but that was captivating.
Yet I love the phillip glass soundtrack.
I do love these feature though, and discovering movies I never heard of. Or just hearing something else champion Disney's Return to Oz. That movie's awesome:)
Agreed. This segment is about presenting WEIRD movies, not inherently good or important ones. Feature films are rarely like this one; they usually have the exposition or narration of films like March of the Penguins and Born To Be Wild if they're going to be nature documentaries, or they remain, as you said, student collegiate films. But this one received the attention and care of Francis Ford Coppola, and it's not like he just went around presenting student films. It's partially unique because it's a film people are actually aware of, and it's one of the first feature films to be this way.
I first tried to watch this movie in eighth grade with my father. Even then, I liked the theme song, and as soon as I read the title, it all flooded back. But, as Tom said, I became impatient after about ten minutes, and would do so again on YouTube simply because more entertaining material would be so easily attainable through a simple Google search. If someone were to release Koyaanisqatsi in HD or Blu-Ray, maybe I could watch it. Maybe it would take the presence of a few like-minded friends.
The cinematographer of this film, Ron Fricke, directed Baraka. Baraka is a prettier movie, but it's not as interesting. Koyaanisqatsi was better edited, and directed I thought.