Naqoyqatsi
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Movie Reviews of Naqoyqatsi
Movie Review: Interesting But Not as God This Time Around
Summary: 3 Stars
I am reviewing this after my second viewing so it is possible that it just hasn't clicked with me yet, but will fall into place with a few more viewings. Glass' music and the -qatsi films are like that sometimes. Still, I don't remember the two others, Koyaanisquatsi and Powaqatsi taking this long for me to acclomate to them. Here's the problem. To be honest, even for a diehard Glass fan like me, these films take endurance. No dialogue, no 'script' or obvious plot - it takes a certain degree of fortitude. This is okay though because the films offer much artistic incentive, and what I've always noticed is that even without plot or script the films - the first two at least - have a powerful forward motion in both the music and visual. Well, after viewing a second time to make sure I've not missed something, I can say that this film offers virtually no forward motion offering the viewer little by way of incentive. Whereas the music of the other two films was, dare I say, directional in its energy, this score finds almost listless sections interposed with energetic ones, alternating between the two so much that one just gets tired of it after a while. Similarly, the visual is not very cohesive. We go from digitally touched up shots of people playing sports, to people marching in armies, to barrages of digital scenery of landscapes, to mushroom clouds back to people playing sports. If there is a direction here, I didn't see it.
Another reviewer suggested (borrowing from Roger Ebert) that the movie is best viewed as a long music video. This is where the three stars come in. Despite its lack of directionality and its almost free-floating feel, the visual and score are stellar. Literally, this is some of Glass's best music. The visual sparkles too. Particularly owing to the digital nature of the images (not one scene hasn't been doctored in some way), this film is certainly a visual spectacle (much the way the Imax films are).
So as not to sound confusing, the gist is this: metaphorically, this film is like spending the day at an art gallery. The pictures are absolutely stunning, but don't expect any directionality moving from painting to painting. In the way that one could look at paintings in a gallery in any random order without changing the overall effect, one could scramble the parts of this movie into any order and no effect would be lost. Yes, that is a criticism because I could not imagine being able to do that with the other two films. Like Baraca, this film is good, but one doesn't come away feeling like one has seen 'a film' so much as a bunch of '5 minute slices' put together in a random fashion.
Good, but I simply expected more.
Movie Review: Modern Fantasia Too Digital: Still, Great Philip Glass Music
Summary: 3 Stars
"Naqoyqatsi" is the last of the trilogy, I know, but I must confess that I have not seen the other two. So read the following review as such, coming from a beginner of Godfrey Reggio works. And I saw it in a theater with perfect Dolby sound system, which should be very helpful.The film starts with a awe-inspiring image: you will see "The Tower of Babel" by Brueghel, with the solemn sound by Philip Glass. Then, the image changes to that of a huge, ruined building, around which the camera floats quietly. The message is clear, and eloquently told. And that music! The classic sound with booming baritone voice "NAQOYQATSI" is something that you never forget. I thought we are going to see a great thing, a cinematic masterpiece.
No, the film goes downhill from there. Not that steep downhill course, but still disappointing because the images rely on digital technology too much. About 80 percent of the images are stock footages from news report or archives (you might remember many of them, such as A-bomb experiments, LA riots, Apollo rockets, and many many others), and these images are all cut, warped, bleached, colored, and then again cut, and finally lined in a series of relentlessly digital-like sequences. The digitally-processed images are at first impressive, but soon we realize that they are nothing new.
And the political messages are dragging down the film, as if the film is broadcasting the opinions (about globalization, for instance) of some people. It's OK for you to be for or against some idea, but when you see it thrown in this casual way, everything becomes too superficial. Do you want to see waxworks of real-life people (who are alive), when the picture looks as if mocking them? I am not particularly pro- or anti-today's US government, and do not want the film to be either of them in so obvious way.
"Naqoyqatsi" or "Life as War" is in fact tour-de-force of Philip Glass, who gave one of the greatest soundtracks ever heard. Many say for nothing "Skip the film, buy the soundtrack" and their saying is truly justified. Actually, his music, surprisingly accesible and very powerful, is strongly recommended for music fans. Worth a look, but as far as its music goes, it is a must.
Movie Review: a cinematic tone poem
Summary: 3 Stars
In the hustle and bustle of a chaotic world, we often don't take the time to stop and really look at all the beautiful things that tend to pass us by unnoticed. It is Godfrey Reggio's aim in "Naqoyqatsi" - as it was in his previous "Koyaanisqatsi" and "Powaqqatsi" - to focus our attention on all the artistry inherent in the shapes, forms and patterns that make up our universe. His film is a succession of images, some of them derived from nature (clouds, ocean waves), others from Man (buildings and bridges), and others from computer-generated fantasy. These he filters through his observant camera eye, state-of-the-art processing and ingenious editing to create a cinematic tone poem. The element that most separates "Naqoyqatsi" from Reggio's earlier works is the much heavier reliance on camera trickery and CGI effects here. For the most part, Reggio has moved away from nature as his subject and towards the cyber realities of the current age. Thus, the altered emphasis in form seems not merely appropriate but thematically valid as well, as Reggio examines a world in which nature has been largely eclipsed by computer technology.At the end of the film we are told that "Naqoyqatsi" is a Hopi word meaning, essentially, "war" and "violence." I'm not sure, though, that Reggio has really earned that title with his film. True, he does include a few shots of mushroom clouds, of street riots, of violent video games, but they hardly account for the majority of the images we see. Perhaps it is the clash between nature and technology that he is referring to here, but the title - at least as defined at the end - still seems to fall a bit short of the mark.
Still, Reggio is often able to find poetry in even the most disturbing of images. For instance, there's an amazing shot of a trio of crash test dummies performing a macabre, yet strangely beautiful slow motion "dance" in a simulated airplane crash. It is but one of the many unforgettable images in the film.
Enhanced by the haunting music of Philip Glass, "Naqoyqatsi" offers a dazzling kaleidoscopic view of the world, a visual tour de force for the aesthetically inclined.
Movie Review: Resolved: Aspect Ratio is Correct, but Poorly Decided
Summary: 3 Stars
At qatsi.org, the film's co-producer resolved our dispute about Naqoyqatsi's actual aspect ratio. Therefore, we can be confident that there was indeed a creative decision to stretch out 4:3 images into 16:9 distortions.This admission, however, subjects the film to a justifiably severe criticism: Such consistent distortion of the film, from precisely 4:3 to precisely 16:9, is fundamentally un-creative. It invokes a cliche that is not even based on creativity, but rather technical failure -- such a stretched image evokes, to even the most casual viewer, a familiar technical error. For example, sometimes projectionists in movie theaters flip the wrong lens, meant for a 'scope presentation (2.35:1), in front of a classic 1.35:1 or 1.40:1 source. This lends any given popcorn movie (say, "Scary Movie 3") the same stretched appearance.
I watched the panel discussion at NYU on the DVD, and noted that a key element of the creative process was video research. Indeed, the working process of Naqoyqatsi, as compared to the previous two films, was of compiling found footage.
In sum, the so-called "creative decision" to stretch all images, start-to-finish, was really an expedient way to solve a technical discrepancy between your found footage (video sources, all 4:3) and widescreen theatrical presentation.
It would have consumed very little time for Jon Kane and his collaborators to crop their 4:3 sources into an aspect ratio that does not insult the intelligence. Selecting the most compelling 16:9 frame within a 4:3 source is the same sort of creative decision that a cinematographer constantly makes.
Movie Review: Beautiful parts but unsatisfying whole
Summary: 3 Stars
There is no question that this film, like others in the trilogy, includes powerful and beautiful imagery. These images and pieces are amazingly well-crafted. Throughout the film there are wonderful images unfortunately interpersed with a number of too-familiar pieces of stock footage. (Do we really need another series of mushroom cloud images?) As much as I admire Philip Glass & Yo-yo Ma, I found the music far less interesting than in the other installments of this trilogy.
I agree with those that assert that the main weakness of the film is that lack of a coherent flow or structure. The message is clear from the beginning and doesn't develop or unfold. I confess I watched the DVD in three sittings because I couldn't maintain attention long enough to get through it.