Naqoyqatsi (2002)

Simply Perfect

Fresh and Exciting

It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

After watching Koyaanisqatsi, I found another movie which related to it. It was called "Naqoyqatsi" which meant "Life At War".This movie/documentary, shows 89 minutes of how we pick up violence , self-destruction, clonage and how modern technology has changed us , as humans over the years of the 20th century. Each and every pro and con is displayed! this movie will show you spectacular cinematography, magnificent sound effects and a brilliant theme for the movie which bell-like voices singing Naqoyqatsi.Once you have watched Koyaanisqatsi, get out the NAQOYQATSI!! It's as brilliant as the first!!

The trouble with this sort of lyrical film-making is that you either make a masterpiece, or a lemon: there's little middle ground. Putting it gently, this is not "Berlin - symphony of a city" or "Man with a Movie Camera". Unfortunately, it's not much to look at, either.The problem with this one is that it's glib and half-baked, as if Michael Moore had come on board. It doesn't really have anything to say, or rather, to show us with pictures and sounds. Koyanisqatsi uses images cumulatively to propound a thesis. This is just a patchwork in search of a point. (Though, quite inadvertently, the movie tells us more about the mind of Uncle Sam than it intends. There is something profoundly paradoxical about an anti-technology, anti-civilisation, anti-media movie that is so profoundly souped up with technology. 'Do as I say, and not as I do'. You just gotta love the Yanks, eh.) Tonally, there's something sour and misanthropic about this episode. Both the prior episodes had moments of lyricism and exhilaration; this time the tone is consistently glum. It simply doesn't work over this duration, as Gustav Mahler will tell you.Stylistically, Naqoyqatsi is a mess. The whizzy digital stuff is particularly misguided. It gives the whole thing a totally fussy, overprocessed look, and it also undermines the 'realist' nature of the analogue 'found footage'. (I mean, I pity the guys. Part of the joy of Koyanisqaatsi was that it was a homage to the use of optical film. But now optical film's an historical artifact, they have to 'take on board' the digital domain; but I don't think they bring it off. The digital stuff often looks like video links from CNN or BBC World.) And with the "found footage", well, the digital manipulation is often ugly, and usually just silly, and the false colour and solarisation kept me thinking of......ahem...James Bond title sequences.Ahem. Odd as it may seem, there is also the possibility that the movie has been simply stolen by Yo Yo Ma's performance; it's about as unobtrusive as a Lawrence Olivier voice-over. The images would have to be jolly compelling to stack up against all that charisma.Philip Glass himself is on odd form; never expected him to knock off the Verdi requiem! (Made me laugh, which, of course, is not the desired response to any part of this movie). There's even one piece of music that sounds like Brahms. (?) Perhaps they've changed his pills.From our 'idle questions' department: is Geoffrey Reggio actually a Hopi Indian at all? Or did he just do a sweatlodge in Hollywood Hills? Oh, and are the various snippets bits of footage from earlier 'episodes' in the trilogy a commentary on the way these movies, too, are part of the global media slushy?

The film is worth a watch if you can hold on for the visual ride. A subjective plot leads you through a poignant journey of a violent and deadly future, present, and past. I found the film intriguing but visually and emotionally disturbing. The film relies on stunning visual imagery that never gives the viewer time to relax and reflect on the meaning of it all. The film is saturated with clever computer graphics. Without the use of CGI I don't believe the point of the film could have been made with as much depth as it had. The film attempts to give the viewer omnipresence over the world condition and how it got here and where it is going. At some undefined moment in the film the viewer 'gets it' but may find it difficult to put into words. The soundtrack for the film was excellent with work from Phillip Glass and Yo Yo Ma.

Dear reader, Watch out! This movie is not really a movie, though its creators have the impertinence to call it so. If you have not been warned about its content, here it goes: the film is simply a sequence of imagines which flow continually and are trying to transmit a certain feeling, concept. They could be called, therefore, symbols. The images are accompanied by a soundtrack, it's purpose being to create atmosphere as well. However, the images the director has chosen can only transmit feelings to an American audience, because they are, in an overwhelming number, American icons. Though the film is intended to express the idea of "civilized warfare", it fails to do so not only because of the general chaos, but also because it is far too long and tiresome, and I strongly felt that a lot of the scenes have not to do with "war", in whichever conception. To conclude, I was greatly disappointed by a documentary which is not a documentary, a movie which is not a movie, a "something" whose only strong point is the extraordinary use of technology in image processing.