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Naqoyqatsi Customer Reviews (1 - 3 of 15 Reviews)

Psychonatigated blissfulness of the holly allah [gati]
A Journey for the minds eye, portal to the unknow. This shows you nothing and everything. Projecteed in a way to let you interpret the data in your own way. To view in as they say [eye candy] A psychodelic exploration of our world as a whole, a raw naked experience of our existence and fetish love. Or as a vissual interpretation of the spectrum of our world and what we do to it and or create. I do not believe in any way that watching all three of the films you are missing much that is out their in terms of what everything is catogorized in all of our american lives. Corperate greed, lusk, ideals, growth, poverty, raw, over stimulization, love beauty, hate, audio and visual awakenness, To really show us who we are and what we saposidelly need. The film is pressented in an all visual scences, some things we can just see to fully comprehend, some things are better unspoken. If you get tired of the current sound track change it feel free to breath new life into it everytime you watch it, our world changes why shouldnt this. Jah Wobbles solaris works very well, Or any Bill Laswells records. This Is by far the most raw psyconavigated piece of work ive ever come in contact with. Be awaken by this reality dream of beauty and dismay. Dont be afraid the future is hear now.

Effective
Reggio has been lambasted to no end regarding this film, with most arguments against it more or less in opposition to his use of digital tools and technology in the creation of the visuals, the necessary bi-products of a digital, commodified age, a dehumanising practise which he is ostensibly critiquing. That criticism notwithstanding, the unending parade of seemingly arbitrary and/or obvious visual signs which are thrust at the viewer without much differentiation or care seems to frustrate viewers of Reggio's "art". I think that it is quite a stroke of genius to do this; in this film the form closely matches the content. It reflects the dreary, non-individualised, cyber/hyper consumer world very well, a world where the arbitrary image of a giraffe/zebra (on, say, a nature programme) can be set alongside an ad for coca-cola. There is no necessary link between the two, but we, as unassuming consumers of signs and imagery, do not notice this problem, it has become 'natural'. I believe that the imagery has been modified, warped (etc) to scare us into a realisation of how un-natural many of the ways we consume and see the world are. The critique proffered here has to be looked for. It is all on the surface. There is, necessarily, no depth to the film and its imagery.

Last Thoughts on a Thirty Year Long Polemical Effort
Director Godfrey Reggio and Composer Philip Glass, in 1975, began work on a trilogy of films, that collectively take on as their dominant theme, the disintegration and fragmentation of modern civilized life. The trilogy begins with 1982's "Koyaanisqatsi", which deals with the "way of life" of the peoples of the northern hemisphere. 1988's "Powaqqatsi" speaks of the influence of that way of life on the more primitive peoples of the Southern Hemisphere. This 2002 film, "Naqoyqatsi", both explores and attempts to predict, what life will be like in the globalized world of the future.

All three films form an abstract wordless narrative structure, achieved solely through the use of traditional or digital cinematography, accompanied by a musical soundtrack from composer Philip Glass. The titles of these films come from Hopi Indian philosophies, yet the vision of the films is not that of the Hopi peoples, but primarily that of director Godfrey Reggio, who left a Christian monastic life during his teenage years in order to better engage with the world.

It is difficult to determine what influence that monastic upbringing had on Reggio's vision, however. In Christian apocalyptic literature, such as in "The Book of Revelations", a story is constructed "in which the secrets of the heavenly world or of the world to come are revealed by angelic mediation within a narrative framework". "Naqoyqatsi" is not properly a part of that tradition, though it's dominant theme still seems to be the disorder of a world which is rapidly approaching a tragic end.

Extreems of love and despair both achieve their psychological power in a person's mind by denying contradictory evidence of their opposite. Extreems of love deny any quality of flaw in the beloved, while extreems of despair deny any possibility of a future communion with goodness. Clearly, the theme of "Naqoyqatsi" is a kind of "totalism" of despair, which utterly denies any of the fragile joys we experience in this life.

The images we see in the film are all true, yet a viewer is compelled to make some sense of their own personal journey within this contemporary life. Indeed, one feels obligated to seek a meaning beyond the "Naqoyqatsi" message. Ultimately, that is why this reviewer does not find Reggio's vision to be personally satisfying, even though these films are an astonishing artistic success. Within the qatsi world view, Reggio leaves the audience with little hope of finding eventual solace.

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