TRIPPING
WITH GODFREY REGGIO & PHILIP GLASS
By
Raymond Benson
When
I walked out of the New York cinema in 1983 after viewing Koyaanisqatsi for the first time, I overheard someone say, “That
was the trippiest movie since 2001.†I had to agree. I’d never seen anything like it, but it was a
feast for the eyes and ears. I’d been
mesmerized for 86 minutes, lost in a swirling and exhilarating journey through
North American landscapes of deserts, canyons, skies, and big cities. Using slow motion and time lapse photography
by Ron Fricke, director Godfrey Reggio presented a feature-length music video
that defied categorization. Accompanied
by the vibrant score by Philip Glass, the film seemed to be saying that man was
screwing up nature and that we’d better watch out. Life was “out of balance,†as the Hopi Indian
one-word-title of the movie meant. Koyaanisqatsi was one of the most moving
cinematic experiences I’d encountered.
Two
sequels followed—Powaqqatsi (1988)
and Naqoyqatsi (2002)—produced in the
same non-verbal style but with successively more challenging thematic
content. Powaqqatsi concentrated on the Southern Hemisphere and third world
countries, emphasizing how the more “modern†parts of the world fed upon the
poorer and harder-working civilizations. Naqoyqatsi went deep into the
computer, re-imagining the globe’s landscapes, people, and especially armies
into digitally-altered and enhanced imagery that suggested we’ve become an artificial
mechanization of our former selves. While
powerful in their own right and certainly worthwhile, it is Koyaanisqatsi that will always be the
ground-breaking piece of the trilogy, as well as the most effective.
Given
the deluxe Blu-ray treatment by the Criterion Collection, all three films are
presented in new restored digital transfers, approved by director Reggio, with
5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtracks. The results are amazing. Each of
the three disks also comes with an abundance of extras—vintage and current
interviews with key creative personnel; an early demo of Koyaanisqatsi shot in the 70s with music by Allen Ginsberg; Reggio’s
rare 30-minute short Anima Mundi, with
music by Glass; a thick booklet of essays, and more.
Wow. Turn out the lights, get comfortable, and
trip out. The Qatsi Trilogy will change your life, man.
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