This film was like getting your first pair of glasses and getting to see clearly for the first time just to see a junk yard, a meat packing plant, and a car accident.
Koyaanisqatsi, both film and score, got under my skin nearly 50 years ago. I've never lost the feeling of being mesmerized by the cinematic creation of Reggio and Glass.
I think this film is the best documentary of our time. Of course the score is wonderful, but showing the world like from an alien perspective is a brilliant move. And even if you don't like the hypnotic pace of the movie, you still have to ask the question: Is this what we are? OR even better: Is this ALL we are?
Re-watched this one during the early stages of Lockdown last year; suddenly it felt like the perfect time for it. Definitely one of the most powerful cinematic experiences I've ever had. I'm moved to tears by this movie. Great analysis!
It's amazing how much it achieves without the usual elements of narrative cinema! The ending gets me every time... Really glad you enjoyed the video :)
Very fitting indeed . I had it on video and later on DVD for nearly four decades and it never fails to captivate or mesmerize . It leaves you almost punch drunk yet contemplating and reflecting at the same time of what one has just witnessed. One gets the sense that there is not too much hope in the naked lust for materialism and human expansion amidst its population explosions . This was made for the BIG screen and i first watched it in 1983 with my late brother in a cinema in Munich . Two years later i got the film for myself for home use .
@@ReframedYT It´s quiet the unbelivable piece of art. I don´t know just what kind of black magic they did to create a movie that with nothing but what is basically stock footage and minimalist music can draw one in just so much and cause such viceral and raw emotions in the viewer.
A consciousness emerging from barren lands, forming and feasting upon it, growing, discarding it dead parts, expanding, transcending its own nature and reaching out to new worlds. That's what I see when watching Koyaanisqatsi.
This movie made a big impact on me at the time and I watched it many times, often to a different sound track, like Pink Floyd or Mike Oldfield (and the synchronicity is astonishing). I enjoyed your presentation and found it insightful and interesting as I've not watched the big K for many years now, but I was pondering one of the follow ups and thought I should maybe revisit this experience. I'm sure it is, as you said, more relevant and disturbing than ever. It occurs to me some 40 odd years later maybe people have forgotten about it, but I saw it turn up in the Simpsons and in Scrubs.
I used to play music like that along with my 8mm movies. It is interesting how the brain makes connections between visual and audio. This is still one of the few movies I can watch repeatedly.
you know, watching the movie and listening to that masterpiece, every time I think about mankind in general: The post-industrial society. Will humanity come to some kind of unified method of management, as according to Fukuyama? High technologies. Will they replace our lifestyle and ourselves? Population and urbanization limits. Ecology. How we replace our wars? How will the concept of war change? Will people have the need of all of it? The questions of life and death. Trans and post humanism. Isn't it all an utopia? Are we ready for all that??... what is next, what is the next goal, where to develop further, space exploration, planet colonization, interest in expanding the knowable, literally everything comes to mind....the ending always make me cry thinking of all the crap happened with humanity for decades and centuries and still happening to reach nowdays. The rocket leaving our home planet, heading into the unknown and inexorably exploding and falling back (the music is sensational, so many different vibes, it s just fantastic, with so strong energy)
Excellent, clear, cogent interpretation of a timely urgent warning. By chance, I heard again today Barry McGuire's classic "Eve of Destruction" which, like Koyaanisqatsi, seemed eerily contemporary.
Fun fact: the music in each scene were not written for that scene by Glass. According to Glass, Reggio took the music he wrote for each scene and used it for other scenes.
It's constructed really interestingly; I love that point about emphasising the ambience of the music and not what it's meant to be describing. Still, it's impressive how well the finished product works considering that.
Blew me away when I first watched it. I took a gamble when buying the Criterion Blu-Ray before watching it and while the other two films in the box set are underwhelming, Koyaanisqatsi really affected me greatly.
Well I own Powaqqatsi and Naquoyqatsi on DVD (as well as various versions of Koyaanisqatsi) and I think that both are inferior. The final chapter features very basic and outdated computer generated images. Powa.... is nice and basically a "Southern Hemisphere" version of the first film, but Ron Fricke's own Baraka, shot on gorgeous Camera 65 film, does it better. It is obviously about the contrast between spirituality and poverty, as opposed to the contrast beween natural landscapes and human activity. Being a cinematography buff, having done a fair share of shooting on film myself, I can simply marvel at the wonderful images, without necessarily trying to find the deeper meaning. It's of course also a matter of "working with the shots you were able to get or find". I think the first film excels here and Ron Fricke was on the forefront regarding time lapse and finding breathtakingly beautiful landcapes, landmarks and everyday people desperately trying to maintain a certain image while failing miserably to do so.
@@truefilm6991 I appreciate your comment, but I wouldn't jump to conclusions on what Ron was going for with the city folk shots. I bet you would scarcely find anyone struggling to maintain an image without speaking a word, anyways.
@@bigballz4u Well I was talking about all humans. We construct a persona to the best of our abilities, in hopes to maintain dignity. It's enough to see the posture of many of the people shown, trying to hide sadness and confusion. No need to be a genius to see that. Fricke probably just went for interesting faces, but ended up showing people who are visibly troubled.
the phoenix art mueseum recently screened this film. i read the discription and looked it up online before heading out to watchi. i had a general idea about what i was going to watch. i was blown away with the visual. just seeing where were headind with destroying our envionment for our technologies and seeing the social class divides of the have and have nots. its a wake up call.
So well done. Thank you. This film is one of many focal points in my life. I saw it when it first came and could never let its messages leave my mind. I even sometimes sit at a traffic light on my commute to work and stare at the world speeding by with this score playing in my mind.
My story with this movie started when I played Gta IV. One of the radios the game features the track "Pruit Igoe" of the score by Philip Glass. I thought it was a tremendous song so I did some research and discovered it was part of a movie with a strange name. The trailer intrigued me, and so I found the movie online and watched. It was an awesome experience, I was mesmerised, and it quickly became one of my favorite movies. Eventually I bought the dvd and soundtrack, I revisit the movie quite often, I just think it's a masterpiece
The work you do is just magnificent. And so is koyaanisquatsi of course. But the way you gave your perspective and words to this wordless magnitude of that film is astnonishing. Glad for stumbling over your video and channel! :)
I will never forget the feeling i had when i watched this for the first time....also under the influence of a certain herb. It blew me away and opened up my mind to a different form of art. I love it and rewatch it at least once a year. I still wonder what the people in the slow and personal shots were thinking and how their lifes went...and if someday i spot a blue ray for a reasonable price im gonna buy it.
I stumbled over this quite by accident and it pulled me in right from the start...I had no idea what it was all about and spent the first part wondering wtf was goingon...then I just let it wash over me and the feeling of ethical panic just filled me. I was shifted in my thinking by this film, and I not quite comfortable with the feelings it left me with for weeks afterwards.
10:38 Cobwebs spun back and forth in the sky. Chemtrail cobwebs helps cool down upper atmosphere but it is painkiller (opium to masses) rather than solution to global warming.
Why must the technology be apart from us? We created it. It *is* us as much as the Hopi tools and creations were part of them. As much as the ancient carvings and wounds dug into the desert canyons by rivers over millions of years are *part* of the land. The explosion of the rocket is as much about death and disintegration as the time lapse sequences of cities are about life and renewal. The chain of electrical towers resembled a chain of powerful ancient idol drawings, and the music in that sequence didn’t seem so ominous as it projected fierce power that is both technology and nature. There is so much about this work of art that is expansive and universal, apolitical and agnostic. It is what makes it so timeless. Also, one fact check: there is no glimpse of “early Reagan era consumerism” in the film. The filming (1975-1980) ended before Reagan was elected.
We didnt create technological society as in some concious informed descision. it created itself and evolved in a rapid chain reaction far removed from human control and is evolving as its own entity. technolgy is not a part of you but you are a part of technology. you are a cog in a machine whos only purpose is expansion. people grasp at these vague connections trying to make technology seem part of nature in some desperate attempt at retaining a sense of power, like the electrical tower comparision you made. but the only thing the powerlines can be compared to is a virus or parasite expanding through a living body destroying everything in its path.
this was terrific.... do you have a full list of films you have reviewed and reframed? i would love to check them out! one of my faves.... a classic with very little dialog, long scenes & epic soundtrack - The Good The Bad & The Ugly - i think is worthy of your time & scrutiny :)
Feel free to check out some of my other videos, I haven't made many on film yet, but I'd like to try some more straightforward reviews. I just started university so I won't have much time to make these kinds of videos for a while :( Glad you enjoyed it tho, thank you for watching!
due a 40 year anniversary 4K treatment cinema rerelease!; interesting juxtaposition of space-'primitive' theme at end, cf. Kubrick's 2001 opening 'bone' scene at beginning...
I love this analysis, but my only quibble might be that you didn't devote as much time as I would've to the "Vessels" sequence, which is probably my favorite part of the whole film. The underlying Cold War darkness--present, I would say, from the very beginning with the sunbathers overshadowed by the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station--comes into focus when it cuts from a parking lot full of cars to an array of tanks and military aircraft.
Is their anyway of finding out for sure what the aspect ratio is for this movie..the 16:9 is always shown but their is also a 4:3 version that has far better composition..the 16:9 is heavily cropped top and bottom
@ReframedYT i have that version and even though it says its approved by the director i have my doubts..criterion have put out discs before approved by the director were colors andvthints have been added
Did Hans Zimmer with interstellar just blatantly ripoff the phillip glass soundtrack? I thought they just reused the music, but it turns out that it is an “original” score. Wow.
![เป็นไปได้ไหม - WanMai [Official MV]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/_6lZ6b3_7Vo/mqdefault.jpg)
This film was like getting your first pair of glasses and getting to see clearly for the first time just to see a junk yard, a meat packing plant, and a car accident.
This film was the first film I have ever watched on my own, consciously. It was exactly like you described.
Koyaanisqatsi, both film and score, got under my skin nearly 50 years ago. I've never lost the feeling of being mesmerized by the cinematic creation of Reggio and Glass.
Amazing, since Koyaanisqatsi came out less than 40 years ago. 😁
I think this film is the best documentary of our time. Of course the score is wonderful, but showing the world like from an alien perspective is a brilliant move. And even if you don't like the hypnotic pace of the movie, you still have to ask the question: Is this what we are? OR even better: Is this ALL we are?
@@jonahfalcon1970 I possess rare talents. Jealous?
@@joannerichards1750 No. I have my own.
Me too. Changed everything.
Re-watched this one during the early stages of Lockdown last year; suddenly it felt like the perfect time for it. Definitely one of the most powerful cinematic experiences I've ever had. I'm moved to tears by this movie. Great analysis!
It's amazing how much it achieves without the usual elements of narrative cinema! The ending gets me every time... Really glad you enjoyed the video :)
Very fitting indeed . I had it on video and later on DVD for nearly four decades and it never fails to captivate or mesmerize . It leaves you almost punch drunk yet contemplating and reflecting at the same time of what one has just witnessed. One gets the sense that there is not too much hope in the naked lust for materialism and human expansion amidst its population explosions . This was made for the BIG screen and i first watched it in 1983 with my late brother in a cinema in Munich . Two years later i got the film for myself for home use .
@@ReframedYT It´s quiet the unbelivable piece of art. I don´t know just what kind of black magic they did to create a movie that with nothing but what is basically stock footage and minimalist music can draw one in just so much and cause such viceral and raw emotions in the viewer.
A consciousness emerging from barren lands, forming and feasting upon it, growing, discarding it dead parts, expanding, transcending its own nature and reaching out to new worlds. That's what I see when watching Koyaanisqatsi.
Very well put!
Wow I never thought about it that way. "Consciousness emerging from barren lands" is a very interesting view!
This movie made a big impact on me at the time and I watched it many times, often to a different sound track, like Pink Floyd or Mike Oldfield (and the synchronicity is astonishing). I enjoyed your presentation and found it insightful and interesting as I've not watched the big K for many years now, but I was pondering one of the follow ups and thought I should maybe revisit this experience. I'm sure it is, as you said, more relevant and disturbing than ever. It occurs to me some 40 odd years later maybe people have forgotten about it, but I saw it turn up in the Simpsons and in Scrubs.
I used to play music like that along with my 8mm movies. It is interesting how the brain makes connections between visual and audio. This is still one of the few movies I can watch repeatedly.
you know, watching the movie and listening to that masterpiece, every time I think about mankind in general: The post-industrial society. Will humanity come to some kind of unified method of management, as according to Fukuyama? High technologies. Will they replace our lifestyle and ourselves? Population and urbanization limits. Ecology. How we replace our wars? How will the concept of war change? Will people have the need of all of it? The questions of life and death. Trans and post humanism. Isn't it all an utopia? Are we ready for all that??... what is next, what is the next goal, where to develop further, space exploration, planet colonization, interest in expanding the knowable, literally everything comes to mind....the ending always make me cry thinking of all the crap happened with humanity for decades and centuries and still happening to reach nowdays. The rocket leaving our home planet, heading into the unknown and inexorably exploding and falling back (the music is sensational, so many different vibes, it s just fantastic, with so strong energy)
One of the Great Films. It is just as relevant today.
Man, these 12/13 minutes were the most entertaining and reflexive in my whole day. Congratulations for your video!
Excellent, clear, cogent interpretation of a timely urgent warning. By chance, I heard again today Barry McGuire's classic "Eve of Destruction" which, like Koyaanisqatsi, seemed eerily contemporary.
A beautiful, illuminating commentary guiding us through a unique work of art.
Fun fact: the music in each scene were not written for that scene by Glass. According to Glass, Reggio took the music he wrote for each scene and used it for other scenes.
It's constructed really interestingly; I love that point about emphasising the ambience of the music and not what it's meant to be describing. Still, it's impressive how well the finished product works considering that.
@@christiaandockers3755 Shhh. The adults are speaking.
I love films like these
There *is* no other film like this
someone in youtube posted the movie in reverse, It's even more surreal watching it that way but still engaging
th-cam.com/video/v6-K-arVl-U/w-d-xo.html
Very, very fitting video essay!
Thank you very much!
This is one of the most important film ever made!
Blew me away when I first watched it. I took a gamble when buying the Criterion Blu-Ray before watching it and while the other two films in the box set are underwhelming, Koyaanisqatsi really affected me greatly.
naqoyqatsi music is fire tho.
@francofx agreed. But philip glass is amazing regardless
Brilliant film & great soundtrack.
Thanks so much for putting the work into this incredible review of an incredible movie
Very kind of you to say, I'm glad you enjoyed it :)
🙏📯
This was a fantastic watch. Would love to hear your thoughts on the other two films in this trilogy.
Well I own Powaqqatsi and Naquoyqatsi on DVD (as well as various versions of Koyaanisqatsi) and I think that both are inferior. The final chapter features very basic and outdated computer generated images. Powa.... is nice and basically a "Southern Hemisphere" version of the first film, but Ron Fricke's own Baraka, shot on gorgeous Camera 65 film, does it better. It is obviously about the contrast between spirituality and poverty, as opposed to the contrast beween natural landscapes and human activity.
Being a cinematography buff, having done a fair share of shooting on film myself, I can simply marvel at the wonderful images, without necessarily trying to find the deeper meaning. It's of course also a matter of "working with the shots you were able to get or find". I think the first film excels here and Ron Fricke was on the forefront regarding time lapse and finding breathtakingly beautiful landcapes, landmarks and everyday people desperately trying to maintain a certain image while failing miserably to do so.
@@truefilm6991 I appreciate your comment, but I wouldn't jump to conclusions on what Ron was going for with the city folk shots. I bet you would scarcely find anyone struggling to maintain an image without speaking a word, anyways.
@@bigballz4u Well I was talking about all humans. We construct a persona to the best of our abilities, in hopes to maintain dignity. It's enough to see the posture of many of the people shown, trying to hide sadness and confusion. No need to be a genius to see that. Fricke probably just went for interesting faces, but ended up showing people who are visibly troubled.
Actually....Powa is not a repeat; it tells the story of the 1st world parasiting onthe 3rd world. It is a true statement of its own.@@truefilm6991
the phoenix art mueseum recently screened this film. i read the discription and looked it up online before heading out to watchi. i had a general idea about what i was going to watch. i was blown away with the visual. just seeing where were headind with destroying our envionment for our technologies and seeing the social class divides of the have and have nots. its a wake up call.
Fantastic Analysis of my favourite film of all time. Cheers.
Excellent analysis
Thank you!
So well done. Thank you. This film is one of many focal points in my life. I saw it when it first came and could never let its messages leave my mind. I even sometimes sit at a traffic light on my commute to work and stare at the world speeding by with this score playing in my mind.
What a beautiful analysis! I hope your channel makes it :)
My story with this movie started when I played Gta IV. One of the radios the game features the track "Pruit Igoe" of the score by Philip Glass. I thought it was a tremendous song so I did some research and discovered it was part of a movie with a strange name. The trailer intrigued me, and so I found the movie online and watched. It was an awesome experience, I was mesmerised, and it quickly became one of my favorite movies. Eventually I bought the dvd and soundtrack, I revisit the movie quite often, I just think it's a masterpiece
The work you do is just magnificent. And so is koyaanisquatsi of course. But the way you gave your perspective and words to this wordless magnitude of that film is astnonishing. Glad for stumbling over your video and channel! :)
Thanks so much!
This video is beautiful, you deserve infinitely more subscribers.
Great to watch at 2am
I will never forget the feeling i had when i watched this for the first time....also under the influence of a certain herb. It blew me away and opened up my mind to a different form of art. I love it and rewatch it at least once a year. I still wonder what the people in the slow and personal shots were thinking and how their lifes went...and if someday i spot a blue ray for a reasonable price im gonna buy it.
Happy to revisit this amazing art work!
What a piece of review! Loved it
Really glad you enjoyed it, thank you!
I stumbled over this quite by accident and it pulled me in right from the start...I had no idea what it was all about and spent the first part wondering wtf was goingon...then I just let it wash over me and the feeling of ethical panic just filled me. I was shifted in my thinking by this film, and I not quite comfortable with the feelings it left me with for weeks afterwards.
I appreciate you. Thank you. o/
Great film, Ben. Illuminating and inspiring.
Thank you very much, Alistair!
Sorry forgot this was public.
Really enjoyed your Borges film too.
@@alistaircormack2180 that's alright! Really glad you enjoyed it :)
That was amazing. Thank you for breaking it down for us! Its definetly still powerfull and diffrenent to anything ive ever seen so far.
I just got the Movie on BluRay, exited to watch it. Thank you for the video :)
Excellent video. Well done!
GTA IV brought me to this movie, any time I hear this music a chill runs down my spine
Another great video, Ben!
Thanks Robin!
10:38 Cobwebs spun back and forth in the sky. Chemtrail cobwebs helps cool down upper atmosphere but it is painkiller (opium to masses) rather than solution to global warming.
Wyprowadziłem się na wieś i unikam tego jak mogę.
I would say the suggestion to spend the last 40k on making this masterpiece paid off....
@3:27 reminds me of Nolan's Interstellar
Very well made dude!
Challenger explosion 💥 happened in 1986! Koyaanisqatzi was filmed and created in 1982!❤😂🎉😅😊! 6/17/24! 6:50am! 12:25
The explosion shown on the movie is the explosion of another mission this was Atlas-Centaur of 1962 not the challenger get your facts straight.
I drove 160 miles with a vcr, got a motel room, rented the video and another vcr, and made my copy.
c o o l
Why must the technology be apart from us? We created it. It *is* us as much as the Hopi tools and creations were part of them. As much as the ancient carvings and wounds dug into the desert canyons by rivers over millions of years are *part* of the land. The explosion of the rocket is as much about death and disintegration as the time lapse sequences of cities are about life and renewal. The chain of electrical towers resembled a chain of powerful ancient idol drawings, and the music in that sequence didn’t seem so ominous as it projected fierce power that is both technology and nature. There is so much about this work of art that is expansive and universal, apolitical and agnostic. It is what makes it so timeless.
Also, one fact check: there is no glimpse of “early Reagan era consumerism” in the film. The filming (1975-1980) ended before Reagan was elected.
We didnt create technological society as in some concious informed descision. it created itself and evolved in a rapid chain reaction far removed from human control and is evolving as its own entity. technolgy is not a part of you but you are a part of technology. you are a cog in a machine whos only purpose is expansion.
people grasp at these vague connections trying to make technology seem part of nature in some desperate attempt at retaining a sense of power, like the electrical tower comparision you made. but the only thing the powerlines can be compared to is a virus or parasite expanding through a living body destroying everything in its path.
this was terrific.... do you have a full list of films you have reviewed and reframed? i would love to check them out!
one of my faves.... a classic with very little dialog, long scenes & epic soundtrack - The Good The Bad & The Ugly - i think is worthy of your time & scrutiny :)
Feel free to check out some of my other videos, I haven't made many on film yet, but I'd like to try some more straightforward reviews. I just started university so I won't have much time to make these kinds of videos for a while :( Glad you enjoyed it tho, thank you for watching!
Saw it when it first came out at Fresno's Tower Theatre. I related to it immediately. My idiot friend at the time hated it. Such is life in Fresno.
That friend of yours might be calling you an idiot for liking it on the other hand. Such is life !
@@TT-rz5hi He wasn't an idiot for hating it. He was just an idiot.
due a 40 year anniversary 4K treatment cinema rerelease!;
interesting juxtaposition of space-'primitive' theme at end, cf. Kubrick's 2001 opening 'bone' scene at beginning...
"A container of ashes falling from the sky" that sounds like a meteorite to me.
The choir in the background: "Koyaanisqatsi"
Reframed: "KoyaanisKÄTSII"
This is almost like the old film Metropolis
♥
heartbreaking
I love this analysis, but my only quibble might be that you didn't devote as much time as I would've to the "Vessels" sequence, which is probably my favorite part of the whole film. The underlying Cold War darkness--present, I would say, from the very beginning with the sunbathers overshadowed by the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station--comes into focus when it cuts from a parking lot full of cars to an array of tanks and military aircraft.
📶☀️
FaaaaaaaanKinGz 🙏
Is their anyway of finding out for sure what the aspect ratio is for this movie..the 16:9 is always shown but their is also a 4:3 version that has far better composition..the 16:9 is heavily cropped top and bottom
That’s a really good question. Your best guess would be to check what it says in the Criterion edition, but that’s not too easily available…
@ReframedYT i have that version and even though it says its approved by the director i have my doubts..criterion have put out discs before approved by the director were colors andvthints have been added
Koyaanisqatsi is a postmodern critique of modernity.
Did Hans Zimmer with interstellar just blatantly ripoff the phillip glass soundtrack? I thought they just reused the music, but it turns out that it is an “original” score. Wow.
Nigdy nie będę microczipem.
steve reviews?
The day of Purification, or in other worlds, The Rapture & Judgment day. The book of Revelations goes into full detail about the end.
1983, dude. (Heck, Q*Bert was released in October 1982.)
I used the date of the premiere at Santa Fe Film Festival in April 1982.
@@ReframedYT There would have been no way for them to have footage of Q*Bert, so that was not the final version.
In most discourse of the film 1982 is used, so that's what I went with.
It's simple. The wealthy at the top above money shooting off bottle rockets. Haha
...there are too many people...
Oh, the film is all about contrast and symmetry. Same as the second and third. This narration misses that key point.