@chr I intend to follow your advice to not read this thread until I've seen the movie, any chance of getting a spoilers CW?

@dgonyeo yeah good point, will do

confused? good. this is nothing. this is the smell of the bread before the waiter has even set it down on the table.

cause it fades straight to this shot, which is soon revealed to be the exhaust plume of a rocket taking off.
https://cybre.space/media/ejGZdteCuEVw5MdKhBw

keep these two scenes in the back of your mind cause we will be coming back to this.

the first ~10 minutes of the movie are some really fucking nice nature shots, mostly high-altitude pans of various deserts around the world.

there's also some interior shots of caves. you know, like you might find cave paintings in. interesting.

mostly, this first section is establishing mood and context. context for what? i refer you to the first sentence of this ping

we then go into some time-lapse cloud photography. the music picks up a bit, but is still pretty slow and majestic overall, just with some higher-speed bits on top.

we go into some pans over land, over water. here's where we start transitioning into manmade structures -- by 20 minutes in, we're looking at pipelines, electrical substations, industrial plants, and large scale agriculture.

again, this is mostly establishing context. the backdrop for what comes next.

then right around 22 minutes in koyaanisqatsi slaps you in the face with a nuclear fucking explosion

confused? GOOD

koyaanisqatsi explains nothing and goes straight to a shot of some folks on the beach with a power plant in the background

this movie relishes in very, very long shots. there's a full 2 minute sequence of a plane taxiing on a runway.

so then by about 26 minutes in we're looking at highways, timelapse footage of cars going by. the music is gradually increasing in intensity, but slow enough you probably don't really notice

it has this great motif throughout the next few parts of alternating high-low voices that gives it a sense of impending...something. its building up to something.

but look, you're not here for a play-by-play. part 3 concerns itself largely with modes of transit. planes, cars, rocket ships.

not just for transporting humans tho. there's a great close up of a nuclear bomb which i hope i never get close enough to experience in real life, and then an aircraft carrier with "E=mc^2"

this is a movie with Opinions about nuclear weapons

among other things.

part 4 tones it back down again. peaceful timelapse video of a city from above.

you like that city? that's nice. koyaanisqatsi doesn't care what you like. the next 5 minutes are grueling footage of rubble, trash on the streets, abandoned buildings, and building demolition.

yeah, demolitions. the music picks back up to match that.

there's some great shots in here, by the way. https://cybre.space/media/WCxg_1z0PUNrHtg7AQs

alright, now we're done blowing buildings up, koyaanisqatsi chills out a bit again. it's ramping you up, bit by bit, but its gotta let you rest a little.

so lets do some nice timelapse. clouds again, this time in building reflections and over skylines.

the buildings are imposing. monolithic. obelisks of steel and concrete that tower over the city. cathedrals to business and corporate gods.

i'm editorializing a bit. but only a bit.

did i mention there's no spoken dialogue in this movie? zero lines. i feel like that's important to point out.

the timelapse shifts to people. queueing for things. walking down the street. waiting to cross.

the speed (alternately timelapse-fast and slow-motion) and brevity of the cuts prohibits fixating on any single person. these shots are of People, as they exist in the ad-hoc amorphous groups that form by chance on the street.

we then get some incredibly awkward shots of people standing still, looking into the camera. like someone told them their picture was being taken and then took a video.

together with some later shots of people looking awkwardly at the camera as they walk down the street...

koyaanisqatsi captures some fragment of individual human souls. that thing you see in a stranger when you make eye contact as you pass. the core shard of humanity.

it proceeds to set up an extended visual analogy between assembly line factories and the movement of people.

cut from a 9-wide sausage-producing machine to a 9-wide escalator to a subway

cut from rectangular pastries moving down a conveyor belt to rectangular cars moving down a highway

from machines making food to people consuming food. from machines building cars to people driving in cars.

the music gets increasingly frantic. you tense, unconsciously.

and suddenly, it stops. cuts to a wide shot of the city from above. the frenetic music ends.

and then it delivers its first obvious Statement. fade from the grid of city streets to a gridlike processor die. https://cybre.space/media/9iyZfGdtOnXlU2s7uFg https://cybre.space/media/pn6R6iO59BkpJ0OgSBY

everyone in the audience say it together: "oh"

all that city life we just experienced is programmed, predetermined. electrons moving down wires. scripted.

its getting late so i'm going to skip straight to the end of the movie so i can bring it all together.

we eventually move out of the city, and the movie reflects back to the beginning.

a rocket taking off. rising into the air. majestic, certainly. https://cybre.space/media/Xd-rHT89mxAl2XRUjSk

it explodes.

the deep-voiced chorus resounds, "Koyaanisqatsi"

it lingers on this shot for like 3 straight minutes. the debris of the rocket, falling, endlessly, spinning slightly

flames, flaring up, then dying

here's what koyaanisqatsi is saying:

FUCK YOU. that's your life. that's your society. that's everything you are and will be. little sputters of flame on the shrapnel of something great but doomed.

all we are and all we ever can be is fucked https://cybre.space/media/aZybWvICdGoGPn5cw1w

because that's what koyaanisqatsi ends with. the only explanation you get.

life is out of balance https://cybre.space/media/5paYl5DPKBNxwADRFkM

what's balance? can we ever know balance? why is it unbalanced?

is there anything we can do?

koyaanisqatsi doesn't give you any answers. if you thought this movie was about answers, boyo, you better leave the theatre and go find a church or something

koyaanisqatsi leaves you only with questions, because koyaanisqatsi reduced your entire life down to 90 minutes of things exploding and catching on fire.

koyaanisqatsi looks at the world through the eyes of someone who's really looking. shows us all the things we forget in order to go about our lives.

you can read environmentalism into it. you can read anticapitalism into it. you can read anticorporatism into it. you can read philanthropy, welfare, promotion of urban restructuring into it.

but koyaanisqatsi doesn't say any of this, because there is no dialogue.

if you've concluded any of these positions are being put forth by the movie, it's because you believe that they are the correct response to what you have been shown.

are they?

koyaanisqatsi won't tell you.

you have to get there yourself.

it creates questions that you _have_ to answer in order to understand what you've just watched, gaps you have to fill with your own conclusions.

koyaanisqatsi isn't here to hold your hand. it's here to show you that no one is holding your hand. that the illusion of someone ever holding your hand was a myth.

that your life is out of balance. do something about it.

fin https://cybre.space/media/tfFdtHPw2P69KnY1-hQ

@chr 10/10 would flail desperately

@chr
That was a great thread! Have you checked out the other movies in the Qatsi trilogy?

@chr i actually got to see philip glass last week at a live talk/q&a/mini concert. he was lovely

@chr Thanks a lot for this analysis. I watched this movie some years ago but I wasn't able to apreciate it, I was too impatient for stuff to happen. Now I fill like I missed a lot.

@chr how do you stomach the idealism of it all?

@dathowitzer i don't think koyaanisqatsi is any more idealistic than, for example, a nature documentary. certainly less idealistic than e.g. star trek.

however i'm confused by the sentiment that idealism is something that can't be stomached. what is difficult to handle about identifying an ideal and examining how reality differs from that ideal? bc it seems to me that's a broad description of essentially every piece of literature ever created.

@chr it's not quite as haunting when you do this though https://twitter.com/ultrabrilliant/status/712364412607266816?lang=en

@chr Re: cinematography.

While everybody and their dog is doing #timelapse lately (Breaking Bad is just one prominent example), #Koyaanisqatsi was a major stepping stone towards the timelapse aesthetics of today.

@chr I agree. koyaanisqatsi is a great movie. Together with its other two parts Powaqqatsi and Naqoyqatsi it shows the three columns of nature and human development. Love it!