Long Skirts Look Good With

«Koyaanisqatsi» de Godfrey Reggio (1983)

"Koyaanisqatsi" is the first installment of the trilogy Qatsi series of 3 movies made by Godfrey Reggio and Philip Glass between 1983 and 2002. The purpose of these films is to make us see the world from an outside perspective, in a universal language (these are films music without words) to raise awareness about the dangers facing our civilization, on the biosphere, the perpetuation of a truly human existence on Earth. These films are collections of images from our world, and evoke a little in principle such documents presenting Earth and humans being sent into space bound for a possible extraterrestrial intelligence. "Koyaanisqatsi" is not a film purely objective, and casts a "conservationist" in the world, showing us initially a sovereign nature, then by linking images of activity men, clearly targeting the productivist system as responsible for the ongoing ecological disaster. You can see the ancestor of a film like "Home", but performed at a time when political ecology had not yet been completely emptied of its meaning (the film claims inspiration from the writings of Ivan Illich or Jacques Ellul). This is far in the background of this huge undertaking mental colonization that is the film by Yann Arthus Bertrand (see credits, where the logos of multinational corporations come together to write home), a film that will probably remain the larger propaganda operation of the new century. "Koyaanisqatsi" part of a base reflective therefore very rich and the approach developed by the director is very commendable. The images are mounted in the partition function, fairly successful, Glass, and any small object is a musical and visual friendly enough. Unfortunately, the film is largely devoid of any idea of cinema. We deplore the absence of a rapidly richer reflection in assembling these images that we've all seen (accelerated plans for people on the subway, mushroom cloud, nature view of the sky, etc.). Thinking about our condition is supposed to generate the film can certainly work, but it is not induced by the cinematic qualities of the film itself which is ultimately conducive to a stimulating this reflection point, a formal condition of the spectator . Laudable in its intentions, the vast image bank does ultimately of limited value if it is the music of Philip Glass. Nevertheless it would be highly urgent, instead of baptizing some new schools of business man named Arthus Bertrand (with his scandalous trade in carbon offsets), will broadcast the film of Reggio! [1 / 4]