Naqoyqatsi

'Between innocence and politics' would be a Donnie Darkesque mistake to describe the experience of this movie. There's more than one dimension in the world of Reggio and Glass. Especially Jon Kane adds a dimension in my opinion. At times I was a bit disappointed that the creators couldn't resist the temptation of getting rather political and explicit. That wasn't necessary to entertain the audience more. Some may put it like certain sequences are on the verge of being political, but the engagement annoyed me. The Beastie Boys video 'Something's got to give' did it better.

Animation/CGI has been completely aesthetically accepted as means of returning to the level of part one with bits of Tron, bytes of the Matrix, snippets of 2001 and views of Avalon (Oshii, 2001). Together with Glass's magnificent tunes and 'skywalker sound' Naqoyqatsi almost reaches the massive level of Koyaanisqatsi.

Reggio and Kane return to computer-mainboards, cultivation of nature, escalation of conflicts, but this powerful and almost scientific exploration of all kinds of human conflicts still has little intellectual value. Not even if it featured a thousand computer generated symbols, Leonardo Da Vincis, Madame Tussauds, American presidents, Hieronymus Boschs, terrorists or babies. The explicit and excessive use of facial icons and expressions diminishes the universal value as well. I was charmed by the portrayal of internal fights that sportsmen and -women experience (but why did they forget rowing sequences?). It still is way better than the picturesque Powaqqatsi, not only because this has less stock shots, apart from some military parades and nuclear mushrooms. I'm glad Soderbergh shoved it forward. 8/10 (Koyaanisqatsi after reconsidering 9/10, Powaqqatsi 6/10)

Welcome to the digital age, a world of speed, cultural hybridity, multi media, and perceptual overload, all of which are expressed beautifully in Godfrey Reggio's third entry Naqoyquatsi.

This one is vastly different from the previous two. Wheras Koyaanisqatsi and Powaquatsi were done in the real world, much of Naqoyqatsi is done on the computer. Using just about every computer graphic available at the time, Naqoyqatsi feels more like a piece of art than the other two. After deciding that Powaqatsi was a dud, I was pleased to see that Godfrey Reggio made a recovery. Naqoyqatsi is almost on par with it's fore father Koyanisquatsi, although depending on which on you see first, you may prefer this one. This one strikes me as less epic than Koyanis, in part because it's faster editing allows for much more advanced montages which are so overwhelming at times that they occasionally provoke headache.

The message behind this film is the way humanity is a competitive species. I think Alfred Adler would adore this movie. One of Freud's students, he believed that the human condition is based on seeking superiority. Naqoyqatsi shows us two forms of competition. One is sporting events, and the other is physical war and fighting.

Phillip Glass once again, works his musical magic, although it seems like some of the score was borrowed from Koyaanisqatsi. Together, Reggio and Glass have provided a trilogy of sights and sounds that defy all the conventions of cinema, to favour aesthetics.

first off i consider koya one of my top movies and think highly of powa as well. this is not either of those movies. it has been made in a different time .

because my expectations were so entrenched i had to stop this movie halfway thru thinking it was crap and take a break.

then i came back to it and really enjoyed the last half. not to say this movie is as well crafted as koyaniqaatsi because it isn't.

but it is very different, the linear sense of koya is gone replaced with chaotic and seemingly unrelated images thrown together into a relentless barrage. At first i struggled to find the underlying theme/string that connected it all as such was in koyanisqaatsi but there was none and i became disappointed. but perhaps the movie is more reflective of the chaotic barrage of information we live in. the unending information and violence overload.

in koyanisqatsi i felt hope perhaps in this nothing but the maddening roar of modern day society tearing itself apart.

its been twenty odd years since koyanisqaatsi and everything portrayed in that movie has only become more intense, more fractured. perhaps this movie lacks the simple sublimeness of the first because reggio not longer sees the world as such. the madness of modern man is much more evident in this. the oversaturation in the movie reflecting the over saturation the skewed perspective our world has.

this movie is certainly not as easy to digest as reggio's other works and i would like to return to it as some point. To those who enjoyed the first two i would say watch this but leave your preconceived notions and expectations behind.

After reading different comments about this movie, I've decided to see it, and I'm really surprised because what I have found has little to do with what I thought it was.

Naqoyqatsi is about the loss of our natural perception of reality and its substitute: the image itself as a product of technology, the image as a weapon in a globalized war. And here comes the apparent incoherence, because the film is a parade of these images, a product of the same technological violence it is reflecting and criticizing. That's not hypocrisy; the contradiction is part of the film itself.

Although I do not completely support Reggio's point of view, I admire the way he expresses it through his films without impositions of any kind, so that the viewer can find his own perspective. While watching Naqoyqatsi, I was asking for the "original" pictures that were below those distortions and filters, but soon I realized the real world wasn't there. It was like "OK, so that's all... Well, let's see it".

A few words about the inevitable comparison with it's predecessors: if you are looking for something like Koyaanisqatsi, go see Koyaanisqatsi again. Naqoyqatsi is a different film. It does well as the third part of the Qatsi Trilogy, but like the other two, has its own "personality". And I think it's a great film. Maybe not a masterpiece like Koyaanisqatsi, but a great film.

Having seen Koyanisqatsi and Baraka I was very much looking forward to viewing this movie to see how Godfrey Reggio's view of the world has changed and what nuggets of visual wisdom he would impart to me this time around. Needless to say (if you read the summary) I was quite disappointed in the way Mr. Reggio presented his latest film.

If one is seeing this film then one is more than likely already familiar with, and highly sensitive to, the problems that are facing the Earth today. Naqoyqatsi seems to delight in pummeling the viewer with shot after out of focused, highly contrasted, digitally altered shot of the continued plagues of the world.

Yes Mr. Reggio, we know that war is bad, that ideological conformity is limiting, that destruction of the environment threatens our future. The task now at hand is not to document the continuation of these negative historical trends but to show those of us interested how we can begin to live our lives differently to alter the course of history.

After walking out of the movie I felt I had just left an extended 90 minute MTV Yo Yo Ma music video. And not a good MTV video but one of those I-can't-concentrate-for-more-than-2-seconds music videos. Disjointed, depressing, confusing and incoherent are the words I would use to best describe this movie. Skip it.