Ed Asner

Pat Benatar

Jerry Brown

Johnny Carson

Dick Cavett

Marilyn Chambers

Sammy Davis Jr.

Lou Dobbs

Thomas Dolby

Linda Ellerbee

Jerry Falwell

Mark J. Goodman

Ted Koppel

Peter Sellers

Bill Tush

Godfrey Reggio

Ron Fricke

Francis Ford Coppola

Philip Glass

Steve Maslow

Gary Burritt

Lawrence Taub

Louie Schwartzberg

Robert Hill

Ivan Illich

Alton Walpole

Wayne V. McGee

T. Michael Powers

Karl Kernberger

Guy Debord

Roger McNew

Dean Alatzas

David Brownlow

Robert Palmer

Roy Hememnez

Neil Bockman

Mark Muich

Mel Lawrence

Jacques Ellul

Phillip Harrington

Leopold Kohr

Hillary Harris

Christine Gibson

David Monongye

Michael Hoenig

Randy Thom

Qatsi Collection

Documentary

Drama

Koyaanisqatsi

IRE Productions

Santa Fe Institute for Regional Education

American Zoetrope

United States of America

No Language

human vs nature

technology

civilization

social commentary

rural area

nature run amok

nature

environment

environmental destruction

lost civilization

observational cinema

environmental disaster

nature documentary

man vs nature

environmental catastrophe

observational documentary

poetic documentary

environmental documentary

human in nature

independent film

no dialogue

dying civilization

environmental collapse

environmentally-themed

Peter McGinn

This is an art film of sorts, eschewing dialogue or narration or a recognizable plot for a visual and musical banquet of images and scenes. So if you are into art films (or want to appear like you are), this is the film for you.

The photographic techniques remind me of nature films, which may not be a coincidence since the subject  matter seems to Focus on what is seen as being against nature. So it is all here: explosions and collapsing of buildings, a bridge, about five times, even what looked like a nuclear blast; then time lapse photography of city and highway traffic and masses of people walking; plus slow motion clips of masses of people walking; and shots of tenements and abandoned building and kids playing in water from fire hydrants — well, you get the idea. 

I like Philip Glass’s music, but there were times I didn’t think what they used quite fit what was being shown on the screen. But like he apparently told the producers more than once before they convinced him to take it on, movie scores weren’t his thing.

So as the William Hurt character says in The Big Chill, just let the art flow over you. If nothing else, check out the dress and hair styles of folks in the wacky 1980s!

Filipe Manuel Neto

**For the general public, this film is uninteresting. However, it will have merits if displayed within the most correct context.**

I've heard of this film as a documentary, but I honestly don't know if Godfrey Reggio really wanted to document anything. This was the director's debut, and for a first work we can say that there is quality, even though it is a somewhat strange film because it has nothing more than a soundtrack and successive images, which do not seem to have a relationship with each other.

If this is an experimental film, I also can't understand what this director really wanted to experiment with. Making a film without a script and without a story? Honestly, this film looks a lot like those successive images that are sometimes shown in waiting rooms, for whoever is sitting there. And what about the film's title? I honestly thought it was some Croatian or Balkan film before I read something about the film and ventured out to see it. Only then did I discover that it was a term from the Hopi language, and that it means living in an unbalanced way.

Without a defined script, without any actor, without a spoken word (the title is sung in a threatening Gregorian tone at the beginning and at the end, but I consider this part of the soundtrack pure and simple), we just see all the images and the sound of the music. In short, the film seems like a mute critique of the modern way of life, in contrast to what was lived in the past, before industrialization. It's what I think. And a good movie? It will be good as an introduction to the environmental debate, as a reflection film. For the general public who are not interested in debating these issues, it is not worth it.

Koyaanisqatsi (1982) 35mm film trailer, flat open matte, 2160p

Koyaanisqatsi( 1983)

Life out of balance

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A review by Peter McGinn

Written by Peter McGinn on Sun Sep 20 2020

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