Koyaanisqatsi

            If a film portrait of planet Earth were sent to outer-space, in hopes that it would one day land in the hands of a distant civilization, it would probably be a film something like Koyaanisqatsi.  Godfrey Reggio observes the patterns of modern-day society, as though conducting a scientific study with a far-removed perspective.  His experiment is structured, connecting images that human beings do not regularly stop to observe, or exposing parts of nature and society that most do not have access to.  The slowly evolving film removes its audience from the atmosphere of daily life and immerses them, now as though for the first time, into that same life.

Without the use of words, this epic collection of images gradually serves to explain one significant word, which is finally decoded from its original Hopi language: Koyaanisqatsi; “crazy life, life in turmoil, life out of balance, life disintegrating, a state of life that calls for another way of living”.  Reggio’s way of illustrating this word is gradual, starting with what could be seen as a celebration of nature and the achievements of human ingenuity.  His choice of shots, however, soon makes it obvious that technological advance, as seen by this distant yet intimate observer, is a source of much chaos and suffering.  The structure of Koyaanisqatsi, complemented by the rhythmic and progressive Philip Glass soundtrack, seems to form sentences of its own, this scientist’s report appealing perhaps to other maturing civilizations through some form of universal language.

The types of connections that are unusual for an ordinary human being to make in daily life are most striking in this film when they relate to movement.  In the very beginning, time-lapse photography allows us to experience clouds that spill over the edges of mountains, a motion that is paralleled by waterfalls and curling waves at normal and slow speeds.  Later, a wave of people rushes through an escalator, their movement accelerated and their blurry images resembling streams of water.  Busy traffic is followed by an automobile assembly line, which resemble each other in the mechanics of their movement as well as one being the cause of the other.  This sequence then becomes a commentary on consumerism, where transportation, food and entertainment are all shown being manufactured with similar uniformity.  Several of these cycles occur during the film, where tension builds through repetition, time-lapse, intensifying music and inter-cutting.  After one of these climactic moments; there is a release of tension on a cut to an extremely wide, quiet shot of a city, our world; as if to say: “we have done all of these things, and here is the result”.

Reggio also accentuates the scale of the modern world with long lenses, flattening images of traffic so that miles and miles compress into a single dense frame.  These scenes become surreal when, for example, an enormous airplane appears to be riding through the road alongside the rest of the vehicles.  A technique that had not been used frequently until this film, the motorized pan, allows the camera to film the city lights in time-lapse while slowly panning across the skyline.  This almost gives the futuristic illusion that the traffic is actually moving at absurd speeds, but it primarily calls attention to the sheer volume of cars that pass through the highways, a number that would not be as striking while watching the roads at normal speed.  Very few of the scenes in Koyaanisqatsi, in fact, are shot at normal speed.  Reggio uses either fast-motion to emphasize the hectic, or slow-motion to emphasize grandeur and detail.  Normal speeds are only used when scenes are surreal by nature, or when not much movement occurs.  Watching people in the streets, for instant, at normal speed would remove the audience from the atmosphere and re-insert them in the context of daily activity.

The portrayal of human beings in Koyaanisqatsi is neither intimate nor impersonal.  Most of the time people’s faces are not visible, hidden in their vehicles, or flashing by too quickly to discern.  However, the film does take some moments to expose cultural and personal elements of its subjects, none of them being recognizable public figures or celebrities, of course.  Many of the people being filmed in the streets acknowledge the camera and react with smiles or frowns.  Some deliberately pose for long extended takes, representing diverse types and professions.  Others are filmed without their knowledge.  By showing people in these different manners, and by accompanying the first shots of people with vocals in the soundtrack, Reggio humanizes life and allows us to identify ourselves within the film.  He considers people as subjects of observation, but also as communicative and conscious beings.  It is their environment that has slowly been transformed into something more and more inhuman.

When the film is reaching its final climax, the last portion focuses on moods, environments and moments where destruction and human suffering are obvious.  Perhaps one of the most telling final scenes uses a time-lapse effect to show workers in the stock market fading away in their pursuit of money.  Along with scenes of poverty and demolished buildings, without showing anything extremely shocking, the structure of the film does tell a story.  It is a saga of human progress where the only thing left behind is the integrity of the human beings themselves.  In that sense Koyaanisqatsi is not a criticism of a mechanistic human nature, but of the state of living in which human beings have submerged themselves – one that calls for another way of living.

 

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