In class, we watched the film Koyaanisqatsi which is a Hopi word meaning life out of balance. This is the url for the film:
http://www.koyaanisqatsi.org/films/koyaanisqatsi.php
If you missed class, you should visit the website and try to do the response based on the images in the photo gallery. It will be a bit more difficult.. but please try. You may be able to find this film in a public library, so that is another option. There is a lot of info about the film on the website, including a link to reviews written about the film to give you an example. It may be helpful, but please come up with your own responses.
On the film's website, the director states, "KOYAANISQATSI attempts to reveal the beauty of the beast! We usually perceive our world, our way of living, as beautiful because there is nothing else to perceive. If one lives in this world, the globalized world of high technology, all one can see is one layer of commodity piled upon another. In our world the "original" is the proliferation of the standardized. Copies are copies of copies. There seems to be no ability to see beyond, to see that we have encased ourselves in an artificial environment that has remarkably replaced the original, nature itself. We do not live with nature any longer; we live above it, off of it as it were. Nature has become the resource to keep this artificial or new nature alive....
....The film's role is to provoke, to raise questions that only the audience can answer. This is the highest value of any work of art, not predetermined meaning, but meaning gleaned from the experience of the encounter. The encounter is my interest, not the meaning. If meaning is the point, then propaganda and advertising is the form."
Choose a passage in the film and describe what was happening and what it looked like. Write what it made you think or feel.
Some questions that came to my mind:
Were you feeling emotional or intellectually detached? Did you find meaning in the encounter? Think about nature vs. technology, time passing, permanence, or other topics that you find relevant to this film. Did you find the film to be more spiritual or scientific? or both?
48 comments:
KOYAANISQATSI made me feel uncomfortable. It was intense. It was shocking. It starts out showing you the earth at its natural state, but it takes you through a journey of human vs. nature. It shows how we are killing the earth. From going to natures beautiful art of desserts and mountains, it takes you to cars, overwhelming, over population. It is such a weird feeling I had. It detached me from things I am apart of everyday and made me look at it for what it is. We humans are killing nature’s artwork and we are striping the earth from its natural resources. The biggest thing that dumbfounded me was the traffic. The way the artist slowed down and speeds up the traffic of cars and humans, shocked me. The cars moving so fast, people... I can only describe KOYAANISQATSI as terrifying. It makes me think of global warming, and one day we will no longer have the earth’s natural artwork. Maybe even earth at all.
Over all, I think KOYAANISQATSI did provoke a different view of what I think about life as beautiful. The life humans are living is provoking earth for disaster. And that is terrifying.
Andre Ward
Ms. Hoffman, did you get my email?
KOYAANISQATSI was a very odd movie. There were a lot of parts that had no affect on me whatsoever, there were parts that i liked and are very memorable. When we first started watching this film i didnt really understand the purpose or what MS. Rachel meant by how you were supposed to view this movie. However, once things started to change and various things started to get destroyed I figured out the message of this film. Although this message is a very strong one and it is a good one that needs to be put out there and for people to realize.
There were two different scenes that stood out in my mind while watching KOYAANISQATSI, one of those was the reoccuring use of having the cars driving on highways really quick with all the lights racing for what seems like days. Another series of images that still stands out in my mind is when they showed all the super tall buildings and highrises falling and getting destructed and just falling straight down, not even seeming to affect the buildings around it. These images showed the message and the theme of the entire movie.
Ashley Fawcett
I distinctly remember multiple parts in the film where they would show an overhead of a busy interstate or highway. The footage was fast-forwarded to almost give the appearance of a singular, commuting, red blob on the screen. I thought this was particuarly memorable because it is probably the most tangble to me. I dont see bomb testings, or natural disaster on a regular basis so I guess the fast moving cars was the most stimulating sequence. I didnt really feel as though the movie was scientific or spiritual, it was just a document of time and the natural progression of things. The movie did however make me feel extremely detatched, almost as though you get lost in the visuals of the film.
I very much liked the earlier part of the Koyaanisqatsi when it was still showing nature on its course. I enjoyed watching the rocky mountains and the fascinating landscapes. Its beauty was designed naturally through the process of weathering. I found the cycle shown of the river meandering, then turning into an oxbow lake and leading to the river dying was in a way, soothing to observe. My favorite scene in the film was the clouds in motion seeming as if they were playing tricks. On one part, it looked like flowing water and then eventually turning into smoke. I for certain did not find clouds to be that interesting prior to viewing Koyaanisqatsi, as clouds seen on a normal day would appear to be just moving very slowly.
As for the music of Phillip Glass, I did not like it at all; a total cacophony to my ears. I certainly see why he turned out to be a target in South Park. I understand that in the absence of words, music was needed to help suggest intensity, perhaps the mood that the viewers should get in to.
All in all, the film was interesting. What I got out of it was the picture of creation to destruction. It made me think back of how life was then simple and now life in general can be compared to an assembly. We do most things over and over every day without putting that much thought into it. We fail to realize how much we rely on technology that we overlook its negative effects. The movie puts a scare to our functionality . . . makes me think how spoiled we have become and how frightful it would be if technology was taken away from us or worst, if it destroys our planet permanently.
The film was very unique and I enjoyed the sped-up images of the city. The crowded subway and train station scenes reminded me of an insect colony. The people looked like ants rushing to and fro, each with a specified task to do for the good of the colony. The sped-up video of the cars on the highway created a flow of red and white that seemed to become a river of traffic. I also thought the highways were like the veins of the city, carrying important things and people to certain locations where they are needed. I felt emotionally detached from the film, but I was constantly looking for meaning in the images and the music. The film portrayed the peacefulness and elegance of nature, while showing the rat race of human life and technology. Although the images of nature were more beautiful, I also found the sped-up video of lights to be very interesting and cool to see. The film was not inspirational to me and I didn't find a hidden meaning, but It did show me a new and unique perspective on different things I see everyday.
I missed the movie however going to the website and reviewing the gallery and reading the paragraph introducing the film I was rather impressed.
First it points out that the film's purpose was to raise questions only the veiwer could answer and that art only has the meaning which the audience gives it. It talks about nature and the artificial new nature that we have created.
I loved the photographs because it shows everyday life slowed down. From the photos one can realize just how fast paced this world has become and then take a look back at the areas in nature (as we left it) where time doesnt seem to exisit. I also like the photos looking up at the buildings reflecting clouds and the sky. It shows the ying and yang of the world, technology and nature.
But I think that the title "life out of balance" is exactly where we're heading by spreading technology to the ends of the earth and leaving no trace of nature except the aspects of it which we can not touch (ex: the sky).
Based on the pictures I saw on the website, I can say I really want to see this movie. This type of art, the one that makes you wonder, is the type of art I really enjoy. Other comments describe the movie as "an apocaliptic struggle beetwen nature and present day civilization " This could be a battle between good and evil but we actually get to play the bad guy this time around. Its a good way to put things in perspective and chage our way of thinking for a while.
After reviewing the web-site, the images and ideas of Koyaanisqatsi sets a time line of the perhaps down ward spiral of the earth. The once beautiful sites of forest and rivers have been replaced by tall buildings and asphalt road ways. I am the complete opposite of a earth loving, save the planet type of person, but it is almost disturbing to see the drastic changes we have made to the earth. With that said, the changes made are almost unavoidable. As time and technology advances, we have no choice but to try and keep up. Perhaps the scenes of sped-up images were there to show how hard it is to keep up with the fast paced world we live in.
Daniel Abbott
KOYAANISQATSI is different than what i saw before but it was good experience . In the beginning of movie i didn't understand anything at all but soon after i start to get in the topic. I think when you adapt into movie you start to understand what is going on. My part was the large buildings. i Believe they were Russian communism building 1 bedroom apartment space no more than 500 sq feet. And when they destroy them Russian communism was over. I just think like that maybe that's true or false but i watch the movie and i get the idea. I though it was impossible to create a movie with out actors and voice speech's but this movie was more had many meaning than many movie we seen in theaters.
Efe Bulutoglu
This movie definately made me think about it afterwards. The visual effects were neat, it was a simple, yet powerful way of getting his point across which was how overcrowded the earth is becoming and how we are polluting. Nature was so beautiful and simple, the clouds, waves, sunset. Then the large explosion of smoke, people lying on the beach with trash everywhere, cars riding on it with the factory blowing smoke in the backround.It was pretty much showing how man is destroying earth by living. Music always plays a large part in films as it did in this one, being dramatic in the pollution part and more lively in the nature scenes. The scene with the subway where everyone was in a hurry the hustle of everday life, people appeared aggervated. It made me take a second thought about what I can do to help the enviornment and appreciate things in their nature beauty.
Leana, sorry I have been off-line this week in NYC. Can you send it again to rachel.g.hoffman@gmail.com or call 813.857.4333?
The passage from the film that I was mesmerized by was when the clouds were rolling over the land like thick smoke. I felt a connection between this scene and my previous blog about feeling tranquil, and calm. I enjoyed the video but the music was not calming to me.
The man vs. nature was obvious and I thought about it like which is more powerful? Nature is unpredictable and can be devastating to man but it also happens visa versa. I thought this video to be both spiritual and scientific.
The scientific point-of-view was obvious: explosives, technology, and MAN. The spiritual point-of-view was calming and aroused feelings: Love for nature, sadness that we destroy it, and lust for its previous existence.
Unfortunately I had missed the video Koyaanisqatis and wish that I didn’t. These pictures really show what is going on in our world every single day. In the brief overview of the film that I read, I got that there is a battle going on in our civilization between Mother Nature and Mother Technology. It seems as though as the years go by there is more and more of the Mother Technology shinning through. I miss the Mother Nature and with there was more around in our everyday life.
I find this to be scientific to me. Science is creating all of our new technology that we use on day to day bases. Without science we would be without a lot of wonderful creations, but my question to myself is if that is really a bad thing.
I am going to track this movie down to learn more about it. This is very interesting to me!
Koyaanisqatsi was a very interesting film. In the begining it shows nature and how it was always in a sense of balance, then when the artist incorperated humans in to the equation you can still see balance within society. I that the artist is not trying to show that the world is out of balance because whether you look a t nature or society there is always a type of balance. The artist it seems to have taken himself out of balance to show just how in balance the world really is andthat there may be a struggle between the balance of nature and the balance of society.
I didn’t see the film but I went to the website and was fascinated with the pictures. I got the feeling that this portrayed what our society has become today. The world we inhabit now is so different from what it was several thousand years ago. The pictures depict the beauty of how our land once was. The other pictures show what our society has created on this land. All of the buildings and skyscrapers seem to be normal to us because that is the world we live in. But do we ever really think about what life would be like without all this technology? I can honestly say that I’m not the most environmental friendly person, but I certainly see through these pictures and what they resemble that something has to change. There are many ways that we can help the environment, such as getting a hybrid or even recycling. The fact is that it is going to take a lot of us to really try if we want to make a difference.
These pictures clearly resemble the change in our environment from what it was to what it has become. Technology is advancing everyday and it’s not going to get better. I think that we should all do what we can to help save what’s left of nature's beauty.
While watching KOYAANISQATSI I have to admit that I didn't get the meaning right off hand. I had to reflect back to the overview given at the beginning of the movie. While watching the film I found myself being hypnotized and just staring at the images. I think the music had a lot to do with it. With the music I noticed that at the beginning of the film it was very soft and mellow while the photos where of nature at its best and as the images got more intense so did the music. There was one part that stood out to me mainly because it made me feel very uncomfortable to the point of feeling anxious. That part was when the people were going up and down the escalator and back and forth through the turnstile while moving in warp speed. The music and the images together were too intense. That confirmed to me that I am a product of my environment, and that everything is get up and go and always on the move, because the people on the film moving in fast motion made me feel uncomfortable because I was not moving and sitting down.
I felt the film was more spiritual than it was scientific. It shows how science has cause people to lose connection with nature. It shows the earth is dying and what we are doing to contribute to its death. The film brought insight to me because when you think of people you know death is inevitable, but you never think the planet you live on may not be here for your great-grand or great....-grand child to have, because the way we and those before us treated the earth.
One of the passages in the film we watched in class that really caught my eye and my attention was the blowing up of the buildings. At first I didn’t quite get what this film was portraying but as the film went on I soon caught on to the concept. I think the blowing up of the buildings portrayed a new beginning. It showed just how much the world is changing from beautiful valies and fields to big buildings and huge cities. I think it was trying to portray that our world is being over developed and its natural beauties are being physically destroyed.
-Matt Brookens
I wasn't there for the film but I did read up on it, looked at the images and found clips on youtube so I could better understand what this film was.
I looked up a part that was labeled "cloudscape" and lasted about five minutes. Among the beautiful cloudscapes, the fast passage of time with rolling clouds. However, it was the opening to the clip that caught my attention the most. It opened to a tunnel opening of light, beaming out with puffs of smoke into blackness that was the cave or ground structure the light was peeking into. It was a "light at the end of the tunnel" moment. It was truly beautiful and natural; there were no filters making it what it was.
It simply was.
It made me think of simple nature and how sometimes true beauty is in simplicity. It reminds me that there aren't that many undisturbed places in the world (and even that one wasn't an exception; a camera crew would have had to be there or other signs of human presence). I found a slight amount of detachment because though the film seems to emphasize the beauty of nature, it is also broadcasting it through the same technology that is often considered raw and ugly.
However, I find technology beautiful as well. As humans, we seek to mimic nature and even our most rigid of structures are meant to mimic that which is around us.
In regards to scientific or spiritual... I am not partial to how I feel about it being about either. Part of me wants to say spiritual as many of the natural settings provoke calmness and I find that more spiritual in nature but then, isn't that also scientific? Using a video like this as propaganda to have people care about their surroundings that don't include the human hand in their manifestations? I am not sure... but that is my view.
-Jessica Montgomery
I was not in class last week, but after reading about Koyaanisqats, and seeing the photos from the website, I have mixed feelings. KOYAANISQATSI attempts to reveal the beauty of the beast, the world being the beast I assume. It talks about urban life and technology vs. nature. i have mixed feelings about this because here is an artist who is saying that the real earth is now so technologically advanced we no longer see the beaty in nature, yet he uses technology to represent what he is saying. Granted... it's hard to do anything without technology. We all have cell phones and computers and maybe an i-pod. To me the world is beautiful the way it is. Im sure however long ago, before humans started to "destroy" the natural enviornment it was a bit more beautiful but I like to accept what we have. We cant change the "dammage" we have already done, so the only options we have is to cut back or live. And think about this... if we didnt have cars, or planes, cell phones, computers, t.v., radio, or anything of the sort something else would be "destroying" us.
The website of the movie “Life out of balance” shows a picture gallery of landscaping, buildings, people, city lights, and traffic. The introductory paragraph of the film made me realized how humans lived different lives around the world. There are human who still lived among Mother Nature and there are others that totally depended on the comforts of modern life and technology .Another point mentioned in this introduction is that humans are destroying the Earth by over exploiting earth natural resources. If we take a look to our planet it is very easy to see the impact of men kind in the world for example, global warming. We all know about it but, many people just ignore the fact that our planet can disappear one day perhaps our future generations can create a balance in our world.
The first time I saw KOYAANISQATSI it was given to me by my godmother in tenth grade. My first inpression of the film was that it was boaring, but after watching it I became more intrigued. The visuals in the movie are beautiful, yet intense. This movie really does a good job of showing the depleation of this planet from forests to the cities. To me KOYAANISQATSI was more interesting after having seen it mltiple times. The initial time I saw it I didn't really know what it was about or what to expect, but watching it a second time really allowed me to focus on the theme: don't waste the Earth.
The film Koyaanisqatsi was very different and one of a kind. The part that stood out the most for me was the nature in the beginning of the film. Especially the clouds moving at a fast pace as if the clouds where alive. As the movie progressed it was telling a story how humans are destroying the world. The new technology we use every day for example cars affect nature at its worst. The power plants were showing the pollution entering nature. The music was really annoying, but it does flow with the images. The music kept your attention throughout the film. My opinion of the movie is it, made its point very clear; it showed how changes needed to be made. Pollution and the way we leave now is destroying nature.
-Alex Santos
Watching the KOYAANISQATSI was honestly boring to me in the beginning and I wasn't understanding the point of the film, but as it went along it all came together because it was basically showing the lives of humans and comparing it with nature. The part that I liked the most was when the film showed the clouds over the mountains moving so fast and also the big waterfall turning into fog.It made me realize how fast life can move because I compared that to humans and what we face and do.The film to me was beautiful but it just took a while to grasp onto it. The film to me was also both scientific and spirtual because you can visualize every aspect of the pictures into our daily lives in either of those manners.
-Ayesha munaf
After watching Koyaanisqatsi my head really really hurt. Although the music was horrible I knew it added to the flow of the movie. It had a great combination of nature and society. I honesty did not see any balance in movie because it keep showing something that lead to pollution or destruction. This movie also depicts a lot about today’s society as well. I have to agree with Alex, my favorite part is definitely the intense movement of the clouds because I love weather and how it works.
-Tyler Ellis
I found KOYAANISQATSI to be somewhat interesting. However, I do not feel that technology has ruined our bond with nature, instead we have just learned to as a tool just like throughout the history of mankind. In my opinion, several scenes are comparing our way of life to nature more than anything. One scene in particular is when they are filming the freeways and intersections in fast motion. As I watched these scenes, I could not get the image of ants crawling along the ground out of my head. The film also seemed to compare our manufacturing to nature's creation. Workers created something one by one, similar to the way things are created in nature. As important of a tool that nature is to us and our survival, I do feel that we need to cut down on it's use and start creating substitute "tools", such as; new places to live without destroying forests and new fuel sources. Overall, the film did not provoke any thoughts I did not already have. The way we use and abuse earth is getting out of hand and I feel that we will pay in the not-too-distant-future.
Koyaanisqatsi was a very strange film. It was a film of a variety of photos and movie clips which I thought of as a time line of destruction. It started out with the Indians and of course there are not too many Indians left today. Then it progressed to the space shuttle and then to a later one which then blew up. The filming of the cars in fast forward I believe to be a metaphor of how fast society progresses and like the shuttle will come to an end. The clouds floating over land and sea will be the only things left. And soon after that, only a picture. I believe the meaning of this film is to tell us that all things will come to an end.
The film KOYAANISQATSI aka out of balance had a great impact on me. It completaly changed the way I saw the future after watching the film. In the movie I saw more destruction over anything else. It made me think of how the world has changed and evolved from mass population to technology, from thousands of years or even just a few hundred years.
The movie showed the beauty of nature from vast oceans to huge mountains and trees. It also showed different types of bombs and destructions occuring, even in populated cities. The film showed all different kinds of stuff, from everyday life to airplanes and army weapons of war. I believe this film has both scientific and spiritual meaning. The movie portrayed the impact all this events will have on the future. It bothers me beacuse after watching the film, I believe the human race will be the world's downfall, later in life.
Because I missed the film in class, I tried understanding what was really meant by KOYAANISQATSI through the pictures on the website. What do photographs of deserts, buildings, and random people have to do with life being out of balance? The director was trying to bring the beauty out of what beast? I couldn’t relate the photos to one another.
It wasn’t until I found bits and pieces on YouTube to watch that I was able to interpret the director’s intentions in my own personal way. I found the visual effects to be astonishing and the music phenomenal. Of course, I wouldn’t have that type of music playing in my car, but for this film, it was exactly what the audience needed to be listening to while viewing such amazing scenes, for it further more helps capture the film’s intensity and suspense. That’s the kind of music that is played at the end of a horror movie when you’re about to find out the truth; the kind of music that keeps you on the edge of your seat.
The director, Godfrey Reggio, attempted to show his viewers scenes from everyday life, scenes that we never take time to stop and enjoy. We take the beauty of these scenes for granted and don’t appreciate them enough. We’re so used to them that we don’t even look twice, like the beauty of clouds in the sky, the beauty of cars on the freeway. Have you ever thought of how amazing it is that every person driving on the freeway has a different story to tell? They’re all heading in the same direction but going different ways.
The director is also proving that Mother Technology is the new Mother Nature. The scene with the extremely tall building that looks as if it’s right next to the full moon says a thousand words, as does the man walking in the crowd shaving his beard with a throwaway razor. Here, he shows us how rushed everyone always seems to be.
Then, he shows us how easy it is for both Mother Nature and Mother Technology to be destroyed. They can destroy each other just as easily as they can destroy themselves.
KOYAANISQATSI is a very particular film regarding the balance between humans, nature and technology. It depicts what this world once was and what it has become. As the film progresses is shows human progress and earths every changing environment in which we all depend on. The passage in the film that really caught my attention was the space shuttle exploding before ever even hitting the atmosephere. This shows viewers the trust man puts in current technology. The never ending urg to explore beyond the limits has its pros and cons to say the least. At one moment your living a dream and the next minuet your living a nightmare all due to technology and the investment we have put in it. Life is full of ups and downs and technology plays a big role. I find the film to be both scientific as well as spiritual. Current change is enevidable and science and spirituality help determine the outcome of our many actions in this new age world.
I thought that KOYAANISQATSI was one of those movies that would stay with you forever. The composition by Philip Glass was amazing! The views of beautiful cayons, clouds and waves were even more special when calm music was added.Just like when the loud orchestra music was playing fast as the old rundown apartment buildings were being shown. I also enjoyed the fast-paced music with all the people walking quickly to get to their important place and the factory workers going as fast as their human bodies could go.
When I think of "Life out of Balance",my first thought is when the movie went from calm music and landscape, to drilling for oil, mountains exploding and people on the beach, but a power plant behind them! On one hand I am very lucky to live in such a technologically advanced world, but I can't help but be angry at myself for enjoying it because it is destroying the world!
Nature is truly spiritual. Anything other than what is not created by man, is true nature, and therefore, a mystery. Skyscrapers are a work of art, created by man. They are beautiful as imaginative compositions of glass and steel, but their beauty cannot be compared to the untouched, pure and simple beauty of a mountain range. Such simple beauty is breathtaking and thought provoking. How did the mountains get there? Not by the hand of man, but by nature. Is nature God? Do humans try to play God by creating superstructures? Or are we using our abilities to pay homage to nature? I believe that as long as we still appreciate the pure beauty of nature, we are free to create what is within us, just begging to come out.
Caitlin Brody
When I walked into class, the film was already started. Without knowing any background information, I watched the film. I really liked how everything flowed together although it was "out of order". Everything seemed to have a purpose and that it was put at the time it was for a reason. I was shocked at the changes that the world has gone through over time. I never realized stuff that was happening in the film was going on. I just was living only with what I know. The film gave me a new perspective on life and what we are doing to our environment on a daily basis.
I think that this film was neat, but didn't quite have such a great effect on me. I do feel, however that it does demonstrate the great need of a slowdown though. Life is so fast paced that it is almost hard to imagine a slow down.
There were very beautiful things shown in the film that are so taken for granted in the hustle and bustle. The river, calm and serene show how the world is quietly waiting on us to realize the results of our irresponsible way of life. Hopefull ymore people get to experience this film before it is too late.
christina gonzalez
I thought the movie was really intense. Especially the sequences where the clouds were fast-forwarded. It reminded me alot of the rolling waves from the previous footage. I thought the film as a whole was both scietific and spiritual because it touched on so many levels of humanity. It was very visual, almost to the point where it was boring; however the lack of dialogue in retrospect i see as a neccessity in the films attempt to convey their message.
- Kristen Graves
What I saw in Koyaanisqatsi was a definite chain of events that included expansion and destruction of the earth and it's ever growing population. My personal favorite scenes were the ones which depicted buildings of old that seemed weathered and decayed, and then the buildings falling being demolished. I believe this symbolizes what humans have done to the environment as time goes by. The central image of the cave walls in the beginning shows that we started in a primitive state, and one day we may cause ourselves to revert back to the same thing. At the beginning everything seemed to start off peavefully, but as time went on, a sort of downward spiral was created and the events that took place after that were nothing less than depressing. We are only doing this to ourselves.
My favorite part of Koyaanisqatsi was the opening scenes where the clouds looked like a rushing river flowing over the earth. Once all that ended it seemed very chaotic, until you closed your eyes. Then it sort of puts you back in a relaxed almost meditative state. Everything else sent chills up my spine with its bright lights and ear piercing sounds. One thing this film definitely makes me think about is global warming.
It took me a while to find a copy of the film, but i am glad i found it. I am a nature lover and always had been. i watch shows on this subject all the time. I love the way that KOYAANISQATSI passes the message. This film shows what happens over time. All other films that i watch are about what is going to happen in so many odd years. this film showed today and exactly what we are doing today.
The way so many people construct to society and follow an assembly line is sick. The scene with all the cars going back and forth for days made me never want to get a job in the corprate world, EVER! Natural beauty is easy to find most people just do not look for it. People are so tied up in their everyday economy driven lives that they never stop to look around. I love this film because i think it does exactly that. It makes you stop and look.
KOYAANISQATSI is a unique movie to where I was just so out of touch in the beginning, that I had to step out from normal thought in order to perceive anything abstract in this movie because I felt that the whole movie gave its messages in an abstract style. I want to start by describing the scene that impacted me the most which was the mirage like image of an commercial airplane running down the runway approaching the camera and then turning away. Later, another plane appears and further approaches the camera at a much closer location to the camera. I don't know why, but it gave me such a weird reaction that it definitely affected me at the subconscious level. The message I saw at this scene was that through the haziness and uncertainty of life, where one journey ends, another journey begins. This is what I call the cycle of life. This scene was early in the movie, when it was starting to show the human intervention of nature. The movie began by showing a "natural" world and then showing the chaos of human intervention and how humans are not only modifying the world, but how they are also harming nature as well by bringing out of balance and out of its natural state. There was a whole lot of messages in the movie that I believed spoke in the subconscious level.
Andrea Rodriguez
KOYAANISQATSI
i think is a movie that shows what goes on in this world. buildings being blown down, also how life is speeding ahead of us with out us knowing.evryday is passing by so quick we do not notice it right away till we hit a certain age.what caught my attention the most is the population of this world,there were several parts were it shown lots of people in this world tring to get on with there lifes but at the same time little by little this world around them is over populated.
over all this was an intresting movie that makes you realize about a little bit of everything around you.
After reviewing the website, the pictures made me feel a sense of understanding about the world. I especially like the pictures of the tall buildings from a point of view that was so much smaller, it was intense. I liked to see the people moving and functioning in everyday life as if there is no care in the world like the old man shaving. I think seeing each photo was more of a spiritual encounter for me. I only say it was a spiritual one beacuse beause the photos kinda of uplifted your spirits about life and that not everything has to be perceived in a negative way.
The scene that most stood out to me was the one where a city was seen from above and was compaired to a motherboard of a PC. This rings very true, simplified all a computer does is turn diffrent switches on and off, these "0's and 1's" work together to make complex programs. if you think of a city that way its very similar. Each person does small insignifcant tasks that alone do nothing, but if everyone works together it builds up and a city, and even the world runs. All thought with that type of thought, it really makes the single person seem unimportant.
This movie KOYAANISQATSI made me realize how fast the earth is changing. We are the reason for this change. The buildings falling made me think of 9/11. After 9/11 they tightened airport security, now that we know about global warming people want to start recycling and stop poluting after the fact that its to late. There is no way of fixing what we have done to our planet. Now we have to try and keep up with the fast pace of life (Computers, Cellphones, cars) and live with what we have done.
One of the scenes that stuck out in my mind was probably one of the less detailed ones. It was the image of the plane with the skyline in the background. It blends technology and nature with its imagery. The plane not only represents the ever changing and advancing world, but also our link with nature. The plane is a bird in the sky. We sometimes use our technology to get us closer to nature, even though it may feel that we are slipping farther away. I also thought that the paint on the plane was interesting. It looked like the sun setting over the water. The soundtrack to the film was amazing. During this scene it felt very spiritual and enlightening. I suppose a little calmer than in other parts. It’s amazing how the music alone made you feel such a large array of emotions just in the course of an hour and a half. It transports you somewhere else. After searching the internet I found the movie in it’s entirety. This is the link: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5539613947839465921&q=KOYAANISQATSI&ei=6L8cSMyHCIyYrALEzYC-Ag&hl=en
The passage which i am going to use from the video was at the very end when the space shuttle explodes and it just shows the last piece of whats left of it flouting slowly all the way to the bottom. This part of the movie really had my focus primarily because of what had just happened. The shuttle exploded and that was the last thing which i expected to happen! I mean i know that it's happnened before but i didn't think that that was the part they were going to be showing us. When i was watching i did feel emotionally connected i was not detached. It made me feel sad, it made me feel like sometimes we have too much power and that power just blows up in our face. Sometimes we need to let thing be the way they naturally are and stop adding all this extra crap we don't really need. Products, things, crap, a whole buch of stuff we don't need. We are living in a material world and their are lots of material girls out there.
Koyaanisqatsi showed me how hectic daily life is all around the united states and was interesting in the matter, but the music that went along with it was driving me insane, i can still hear the music right now. I see what the artist was trying to do but to me it just made me wanna shoot myself because it was pretty much the same music throughtout the whole video, it makes me almost forget the content of the video
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