Naqoyqatsi
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Movie Reviews of Naqoyqatsi
Movie Review: Miramax says this is how the picture should look
Summary: 3 Stars
As others have noticed, this picture is not anamorphic - with many or most scenes stretched horizontally. The Miramax technician I talked to said that this was how the producer wanted the film transferred (!) and that they were not planning any changes to the release.I don't know if this is really the case but you should be aware if you buy this DVD that it will not look good on a 16X9 television. If anyone knows the producer of the film you might pass this information on to him. The technician did admit that they've received a number of calls on this issue.
Movie Review: oh yuk
Summary: 3 Stars
This is a mess..
what happened??
The best thing about the whole movie was the opening scenes in the
abandoned building..
and I would love to know where those scenes were shot.
They never go back to scenes,which is really confusing. What were they there for??
Too much overly bright shots,this is far below their other superb movies.
Movie Review: I liked the first two better.
Summary: 3 Stars
I got real excited for this one and had my hopes up for something amazing. Its ok, and my friends gave it a less rating then I did. I do appreciate what they are trying to do with this film even though I have no idea what they are trying to do in this film:) A good conversation piece though like the rest of the series.Movie Review: Life as Mish-Mash
Summary: 2 Stars
Whereas K-qatsi & Ron Fricke's Baraka easily earn five star ratings for their originality, form, and unity, N-qatsi suffers from many of the same shortcomings of P-qatsi. Again, I can only rate this effort a two.The theme of N-qatsi is `Life as War', and there are many sequences here to support that theme, literally and figuratively. But there is also a lot of stuff thrown in that doesn't really support the theme at all and just confuses the viewer. I guess one could make the case that humanity is at war with everything and anything, and therefore all material is relevant, but that's just a bit too facile an approach. Strangely, some of this filler material is among the more interesting footage. I especially liked the short zoom into the Mandelbröt Set, the MRI imaging sequence, and the rapid morphing of old masters oil paintings.
Aside from issues with content, form and momentum are again lacking. The narrative is just too disjointed. You could cut this together in a thousand different ways and it really wouldn't make much difference. Aside from the opening sequence (which is very much like K-qatsi in certain respects), the overall pacing, for all its freneticism, is actually quite monotonous. Maybe life can be monotonous. Maybe war, too, at times can be monotonous. But both usually build up to some sort of defining moment and I just don't find that happening here.
The addition of a cello on top of Glass' trademark minimalist scoring is a nice touch. The prominent solo cello smoothes out the inherently mechanistic effect of minimalism, producing a pleasing synthesis. Still, one might question this particular combination for a film that is subtitled `Life as War'. If anything, war is mindless and mechanical, so straight minimalism might have better supported the film's theme. Nevertheless, the music does very much help to tie the video together and smooth the edges, while the liberal use of odd meters keeps things a bit edgey.
As for the aspect ratio debate, I think the problem is that there is just a ton of full frame (or slightly wider) stock video in this movie. There are points throughout the film where the aspect ratio does appear normal, but there are many more where it does not. I find this type of distortion especially noticeable on the human face. Instead of cropping these images from above or below so that they would maintain the proper aspect ratio when enlarged and transferred to widescreen, it would appear they were just indiscriminately stretched to fit into the widescreen frame. The images that aren't distorted are probably from source material that was already widescreen or was custom shot for the film. On the other hand, almost the entire film consists of fleeting images that are heavily processed, filtered, and distorted in a myriad of other ways, so it hardly matters that the aspect ratio isn't consistent. Still, it kind of strikes one as sloppy. Maybe somebody was `at war' with the film's technical supervisor.
All in all, N-qatsi is probably worth a rental. It's just a shame so much time passed between K-qatsi and the other two. Something unique and powerful was lost in the interim.
Movie Review: Left me feeling a little low-brow
Summary: 2 Stars
Before saying anything else, I should say that I haven't seen any of the other parts of this trilogy.Now, generally I don't think of myself as an uncultured person, but this film leaves me a little unsure of that.
Visually, I thought this film was pretty amazing. The images have a great deal of texture and the color - when present - is vivid. Lush computer-generated graphics have a sort of balancing effect on some of the old images. At times, though, I felt as though the director, Godfrey Reggio, was being a little unimaginative. Oftentimes his only fingerprint on the image is doing that effect that makes the film look like a film negative (obviously I'm not a film student).
The images are pretty varied, which helps considering the film is almost an hour-and-a-half. In my opinion, though, the actual "Naqoyqatsi" - Life as War - doesn't really set in until the last thirty minutes or so. Perhaps I'm not seeing the message in the earlier file footage, but it appeared to me that Reggio was dipping a little too much into the ESPN archives. The last thirty minutes, however, has the sort of material I was expecting (and hoping for), like atomic blasts that destroy buildings and forests, riots, et cetera.
The music is unimpeachable. Philip Glass' score is remarkably beautiful and Yo Yo Ma (whose work I'm not very familiar with) does a great job. The music really sets the pace and makes it more accessible.
All in all, this wasn't bad. Unfortunately, I'm an uncouth person who generally doesn't get any more artsy than Kubrick.