Tip jar

If you like CaB and wish to support it, you can use PayPal or KoFi. Thank you, and I hope you continue to enjoy the site - Neil.

Buy Me a Coffee at ko-fi.com

Support CaB

Recent

Welcome to Cook'd and Bomb'd. Please login or sign up.

March 28, 2024, 02:25:09 PM

Login with username, password and session length

'Koyaanisqatsi / Powaqqatsi' - anyone seen them?

Started by Jed Maxwell, April 05, 2004, 01:09:47 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

Jed Maxwell

FAO all film nerds...

Had DVD box set on offer in HMV the other day (£12.99) and was quiet tempted having heard that they are unique & groundbreaking, etc. However, after reading cover blurb I was no wiser as to what they were actually about. Plenty of plaudits and descriptions of how revolutionary they were but no real clue to if they are narrative or merely a collection visual images.

Anyone seen? opnions?

The Bejesus

Ever seen Baraka?  They are similar to that - mind bending footage from around the globe with haunting soundtrack that can quite literally blow your mind.  (Not really).

Too much in them to describe but as far as a different viewing experience, you could do worse.  Well worth the £20 I paid for them about a year ago.  At the beginning of one of them is a section in a mine in S. America (I think).  Think "Human Anthill" and you're not far off.  The music over that section is amazing.

If you google the titles there's a website which goes into more depth about the symbolism etc.  All very deep which is good if you want it, but if you want a smoke and have a crazy couple of hours its good for that too.

Enjoy.

falafel

I bought them.

Basically really long montages with a quite-good soundtrack by Philip Glass - they remind me of those old videos about the environment I used to have to watch in science lessons. Lots of panoramas, pictures of poor African people, etc. I believe that they were originally commissioned by some education office in America - which wouldn't surprise me. They're pretty enough, but frankly I really haven't been able to sit through them. I'll just stick them on in the backgournd, listen to the soundtrack, occasionally look at one of the pretty pictures, you know. Probably best to think of them as more of a music DVD than a movie nowadays. As I say, the score is quite good on both, if a little indulgent\eighties\world-music-y, and is in 5.1, so it's worth getting them for that. Sort of. I think.

smoker

i've seen the first half of Koyaanisqatsi, it's very relaxing but a bit slow, doesn't appear to be a narrative, more a stream of evocative images set to music. i recommend watching it stoned

alan strang

I've seen the first one. It's a series of nicely-filmed shots of mountains, landscapes, clouds, buildings, etc, all backed by a soundtrack by Phillip Glass. The only 'narrative' involves the gradual change from 'undisturbed environment' through to the advent of civilisation (including footage of atomic explosions), to overpopulation (the latter depicted by lots of speeded-up shots of New York - escalators filled with people, shopping centres, TVs, tube trains) and then back to the mountains again. The style of music fluctuates throughout, from slow-chanting at the start, building up slowly to the frenetic style parodied by Lewis-Smith and Chris Morris ("one two three, one two, one two three, one two three four, one two, one two..."), and then back to the chanting.

Koyaanisqatsi used to be a favourite footage-source for ad-makers - I remember loads of shots being lifted from it to illustrate artsy commercials for Norweb and the like (you know the sort of thing: "as a city sleeps, we are working round the clock to power the nation...")

There's a very nice tracking shot towards the end which captures a rocket being launched, shows it exploding in mid-air and follows the subsequent descent of one tiny piece of debris. It's years since I first saw it and I still have no idea how they managed to get that final shot.

I'd pay thirteen quid for it on DVD anyway. I still own the first one on a CED disc  (defunct vinyl videodisc format) although I don't have a player.

Ambient Sheep

I too would buy them on DVD for thirteen quid, and in fact will be doing so; thanks!  I've seen the first one - Channel 4 used to show it a lot - and as others have said it has lots of languid shots of the natural world interspersed with speeded-up shots of modern human activity.  The shot that always sticks in my mind is the super-speeded up pictures of traffic in New York (much copied / imitated since) to that frenetic Philip Glass soundtrack.

The word "'Koyaanisqatsi" is a Native American - don't ask me exactly which language - term meaning "A way of life that is incompatible with living" or something like that (it's been a long time since I read up on this).  The whole thing is supposed to be a commentary on how, um, modern life is rubbish and how we're ruining the planet, etc.

I know nothing about the second film (or its title), except that its along the same sort of lines.

Jed Maxwell


Have this very box set - Koyaanisqatsi is excellent, but I've been unable to get through Powaqqatsi yet, not sure why, maybe because it's not about the things I'm familiar with.

Definately worth £13 or however much Play are selling it for just for the first disc and you might enjoy the 2nd too.

And as everyone's said, it's not narrative, it's just shots set to music. But genius.

Geej

It is quite superb - the first disc is the first truly ART video montage, and most of us have seen pop videos or adverts stealing ideas from this left right and centre.

In fact I have a couple of sections (driving at night / moon accross buildings) as a screensaver.  

Buy it.


The second one.... not as good at all.  I would like to put the blame not on the director, or the composer, but on one of the associate producers.  a Mr G. Lucas.  and no I still have not forgiven him for that bloody Episode I yet...