Mountain FogRETROSPECT: KOYAANISQATSI (1982)
January 14th 2009 17:09
Koyaanisqatsi dazzles with its photography
Documentaries come and go, but it’s rare that a piece of non-fictional film-making scribbles a mark in your brain as vivid as that left by Koyaanisqatsi. Touted by director Godfrey Reggio as an equal parts collaboration between himself, cinematographer Ron Fricke and composer Philip Glass, this is powerful, gut-punching stuff that not only dazzles your synapses, but also leaves you in a state of contemplation for days afterward.
It’s a shame then that Koyaanisqatsi has been close to forgotten outside of a small band of hardcore admirers, often pushed to the side in deference to Baraka, the well known and much-loved 1993 film actually directed by Fricke.
Indeed, both films are very similar in basic concept. Both are documentaries, without dialogue, narrative or characters. But while Baraka is often a gentle experience, a meditation and loose travelogue presented in 70 millimetre, Koyaanisqatsi is an altogether different beast composed of startling nature imagery often shown in slow motion or time lapse and then juxtaposed with human being’s ruinous impact on the environment and themselves.
Not that Baraka is without its arresting passages, but Koyaanisqatsi turns out to be a more focussed and ultimately more compelling film when compared to its younger cousin. The technology that Ron Fricke developed for Baraka has become more commonplace; what was striking in 1993 isn’t so much 16 years later. Consequently, the focus slips back to what drives any film, be it fiction or non-fiction: the story telling. And this is something that Koyaanisqatsi does much better.
Perhaps also it had something to do with the timing, with Koyaanisqatsi emerging in 1983, at the beginning of a period that would come to be defined by its obsession with wealth and worldliness. Indeed, Reggio must have despaired at what he saw later in the decade. Baraka, on the other hand, was released in the more liberal times of 1993, finding a new generation eager to shun the excess of the 80s and trying to make sense of the first Gulf War.
With environmental concerns now higher on the Western world’s agenda than ever before, Koyaanisqatsi seems to have taken on renewed importance and watching the film in this modern context goes further to illustrate just how prescient it was for its time. So startling is the imagery – even for the new millennium – one can barely imagine what it must have been like to see the film on its initial run in 1982.
The film begins with a striking focus on nature
One of the most striking elements of Koyaanisqatsi is how carefully it is structured. The film begins with vast, beautiful and unpopulated landscapes – giant mesas, the Grand Canyon, flowing cloud formations, rhythmic seas – before slowly escalating into the chaotic creations of manmade civilisation. It juxtaposes again and again, setting the delicate flows of nature against the mechanised flows of the metropolis, be it a factory production line or a set of escalators pumping out the people. As you watch you can’t help but start to view humankind as some sort of strange malignancy, slowly warping the face of the planet.
And that’s the film’s great success; it creates a strange sense of revelation. The experience is similar to looking at a photo of yourself for the first time, captured in an unguarded moment and showing all of your ignored imperfections. As you watch, there’s a sudden, thudding realisation of context and an understanding of what it is exactly human beings have done to the delicate environment in which they live.
Concurrently and disturbingly, Koyaanisqatsi also seems to dare the audience to admire the man made objects with which nature has been bent. Brilliant photography captures massive machinery, pristine glass edifices and sleek tools of war; taken on their own many of the pictures would almost seem a monument to man’s magnificence. Ultimately, however, the context within which Reggio and his collaborators place these images is unmistakable.
Reggio and his collaborators don't shy away from the dehumanising effect 'progress' has on its own people
Driving everything along is Philip Glass’ urgent score. Much like the slow intensification of Fricke’s images, Glass’ music percolates carefully, working itself into a delicious fervour by the time the most animated and arresting passages rush across the screen. It never dominates the visuals, but complements magnificently. It’s rare that a film and its score tie themselves together so closely.
Of course, all these words don’t nearly do the film justice; this is a visual and aural journey that needs to be experienced and, just like any other trip, it’s best traveled with a friend who can share the sights. Koyaanisqatsi is a piece of art that threatens to engulf the viewer. It compels you to come back again and again, and each time you do you seem to go away with a new avenue of understanding on what is one of the most thought-provoking documentaries of modern times.
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Comment by Norm
Consumption Malfunction
Equal and Opposite
Arses and Elbows
Footy Power
I found it compelling viewing and listening on the tv.
Must be worse at the cinema
Thanks.
Comment by Matt Shea
20/20 Filmsight
Comment by David O'Connell
Screen Fanatic
Comment by Matt Shea
20/20 Filmsight
Comment by Damo
Soundtrack is good
I am not a big fan of Philip Glass or minimilist music. However he managed to pull it off as a soundtrack.
Comment by Matt Shea
20/20 Filmsight
Comment by The Sorcerer
Comment by Matt Shea
20/20 Filmsight
Comment by Steve Cerrito
Thanks for the reply.