Saturday 30 November 2013

Koyaanisqatsi

Recently Koyaanisqatsi was screened at college, an art house film documentary made in 1983 by Godfrey Reggio. Koyaanisqatsi translates as "crazy life" "life in turmoil" and "life out of balance", the film looks at the serenity of nature in comparison to man made places, such as factories and cities. Using different speeds of filming, and time lapses, it enabled us to see so much more movement than the human eye would normally capture, which revealed many repeat patterns in clouds, water, rocks and sand. 
The scenes of nature were accompanied by calm, light music, whereas the scenes involving humans or man made structures were accompanied by frantic, heavy music, reflecting the speed and level of movements shown. In the film, human life was represented as being destructive, with no happiness, only showing the world working as a machine with no character. Hopi prophesies were shown at the end of the film, which reflected on the scenes shown throughout, it made me consider the destruction and the mess we have created, in a world that can be so beautiful.

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