Koyaanisqatsi

(Godfrey Reggio, 1982.)

IMDB

Koyaanisqatsi, literally translated as “life out of balance”, is a collection of videos that represent moving image as art. It's an innovative, personal journey documenting time passing via various environmental, industrial and human actions. It's an epic and poetic journey through footage that speaks volumes without any actual dialogue; just the moving image choreographed to the soundtrack composed by Phillip Glass. It's systematic and repetitive music that changes very slightly according to the mood emoted by the visuals.

The initial piece of film we see is footage of slow-motion debris falling, although at first it's not entirely clear what we're looking at. As it slowly widens, it becomes distinct that it's the base of a rocket launch; the scale of which, I personally find quite threatening. In a complete change from this, the footage changes to a largely environmental scene, a wide pan across a landscape of rocks and boulders. Footage of clouds passing over the landscape, casting shadows and creating formations, is sped up to the point of darkness falling. Footage is also shot from in and above the level of the clouds, drawing attention to the movement and formation of such natural occurrences. There's imagery of clouds spilling around mountains and valleys, like water being poured. POV footage takes us through the sky, looking down on the varying landscapes below, showing the audience a different way of viewing nature. It pans across fields of rich colours; blues, purples, reds and yellows. It draws attention the perfection of natural reflections as well as the fluidity in the movement of unaltered/ untouched conditions, like the rolling of waves or the dissipating of clouds and mist.

The next section seems to focus on beauty in unexpected places, man-made surroundings. This is accompanied by big, looming music. The footage goes through a series of heavy machinery, dense black smoke engulfing the screen, implosions, explosions, stills of power lines, long leading lines of pipework; beauty amongst an engineered environment or within destruction. Similarly, the visual features offered by the imagery of war are equally hypnotic and strangely beautiful. Imagery of missiles falling in slow motion, sailing through the sky like birds. Or the POV of a fighter jet flying through the air. Rows of tanks, guns cocked upwards. The space capsule detaching. An atomic bomb detonating. All of the aforementioned are threatening, scary occurrences that, when placed within such a forceful rhythm of film and to such a strong sound, are weirdly mesmerizing.

The next phase of film is heavily centred around a cityscape; overcrowded, busy, dense and relentless. Full car-parks, planes taxiing amid the haze of water vapour, cars filtering in towards the city- bathed in the shadows of skyscrapers. Night footage of tall buildings with lights flickering on and off like parts of a circuit board. High speed, long exposure footage of cars passing through the city, creating lines of light. Aerial shots of cars moving through the labyrinth of roads. The full moon passing behind the silhouetted skyline. The vastness of the cityscape is shown in daylight via a long shot, interrupted by the lens glare of the sun reflecting off of the huge amount of glass and metalwork.

The whole thing feels like feels like a real visual feast, overpowering and stimulating the senses in a completely unique (at the time) and beautiful way.