Vox Populi
Koyaanisqatsi is a film that one can easily envision having been made in the 1920s, or ‘30s, or even the ‘50s…from somewhere in China, or Russia; one of those strange, state-sponsored films that show capitalism in disrepute, and uncheckable disintegration, and likewise show some Benevolent Government (it doesn’t have to be China or Russia, but I’m a Westerner and have been properly washed of all things harmful coming from Daddy Country) in perfect resolve to protect its people and, better yet, uplift them and show the outside world the splendid life they live under the watch and care of government.
Nothing could be further from the truth, however. This scenario comes wholly from the imagination of historical happenstance. In fact, the film Koyaanisqatsi premiered in 1982, directed by Godfrey Reggio (famous for broad, panning scopes that articulate the world in poetic folds of visual concentration), and produced by Francis Ford Coppola. The film features what many high-profile reviews and casual viewers have described as “a movie with no conventional plot” that focuses on humanity’s unbalanced relationship with his own and Earth’s environment brought about through untamed progress. One can disagree with the reviews and viewers’, and my own, simple synopsis of Koyaanisqatsi. It’s certainly an art film, by all stretches of modern film description. Yet it also holds that socio-political angle if only through basic interpretation of its subtitle: “Life Out of Balance”.
I don’t review movies. Never have. However, as my passion for arts extends to each possible room of the arts’ hacienda, I can say something about how the movie affected me. And—before I do so—let me also point out that this effect has little to do with my overall point of this essay. Nonetheless, readers expect this in the back of their mind, to the effect of asking themselves as they read, “But what do you think about the movie?” So here’s my take on Koyaanisqatsi: Reggio presents a vision of life that seems straight out of Alvin Toffler’s book “Future Shock”, a dramatic exposition of life and society moving so quickly that people’s minds—partly because of genetics perhaps, but more likely their sense of history and of themselves in its maelstrom—cannot grasp the ever new landscape presented to them by science, medicine, manufacturing, social change, architecture, even art. All this sounds familiar, doesn’t it? A computer’s life is about two years; pharmacology has advanced to a point where people live much longer than they should ever rightly expect; the Internet has changed everything about communication and information retrieval for the present and into the long, long future. “Future Shock” actually was published in 1984, two years after Koyaanisqatsi. Don’t think future shock is lived by you? Think again. If I were writing this essay in 1984, I would have had to stop and go to the library to look up Toffler’s book for the year it was published; likewise for Reggio’s movie. Instead, I found both references—and all the information I could possibly want—within 18 seconds, just by Googling both names. That, my friends, is future shock.
Koyaanisqatsi makes a case for life out of balance through images and sound. First by showing in those broad, sweeping pans, Mother Earth in its pristine nature. Then, gradually, Reggio introduces the effects of humanity on both Earth’s landscape and, ultimately, the environment. As this happens, music plays, first with the tempo appropriate to Earth’s historic geological progress, then, increasingly, according to humanity’s intrusion on the world, right up to that present day when the film’s last roll was shot in 1981. I won’t say more of “what happens” in the film because that would sully the overall experience each of us can have with its images and score. However, a few minor notes before one overriding issue: there is no dialogue; there are no characters; but, you can watch this film with popcorn and soda.
That Web sites and reviews call Koyaanisqatsi “without conventional plot” I would both agree and disagree. Shut up and let me be contradictory for a moment. “Plot” is such a conventional term that I’m not surprised Koyaanisqatsi is described in that way. Yet plot is not needed, or, to wit, plot need not be talked about at all with so much else going on in this film. What else is there going on, Mark? you may ask. I will tell you.
Metaphor.
Godfrey Reggio uses images and music to do the work in 1.5 hours that thousands of voices in the 1960s Environmental Movement raised for at least a decade: too much is going on with our lives (technically a non-environmental issue, but certainly relational to how we live socio-environmentally) and too much is happening against society in general, the environment in particular, and humanity under the microscope of film.
Plot? Plot?? Who needs plot when you have character? “The Earth”; “Machinery”; “Shapeless High-Rise Buildings”; “A Man Walking Quickly”; “A Woman Staring.” Or, who needs plot when you have metaphor? “Man Vs. Himself; “The Machinery of Progress Vs. Necessities of a Life Fully Lived; “Modern Life’s Speed Vs. Stress on One’s Humanness”. Or…come up with your own after you’ve watched the film.
The irony of that ubiquitous statement— “a film without conventional plot” —is part of what Koyaanisqatsi battles against. Plot summaries are quick avenues to the notation of materials, be they films, novels, theater, ballet, television, even poetry. Speed is what society worldwide is all about nowadays. We want things fast. We want information there when we need it, as we demand it. I’m no different, often. When I searched for the “Future Shock” reference, I had to wait nearly two seconds for the page to load on screen. What agony when I’m holding onto a thought to complete the sentence I had in mind to write! How in Hell did Proust write 900,000 words to complete “In Search of Lost Times” without a computer?
Yes. Life out of balance. The increased speed with which we live, and thus demand of those objects—and people—that we use for our business, relationships, relaxation, and pleasure. There is no time for plotless movies, is there? Well, if that is true, there is then no time for metaphor, no time for irony (if people even know what that is anymore). And then there is little enough time for Shakespeare, for Sam Johnson, even for David Sedaris. Well, perhaps we can fit in Sedaris.
Shame on this sentiment. And a pox, too! For when we loose the mental image that metaphor creates, and then the story that springs from metaphor (yes, story), we as humans are in fact the slaves to the very machines that we’ve demanded use of in order to lessen our dependence on long, painstaking tasks, machines that would leave us more time to read, to succeed in our relationships, for love, for our children, even to contemplate the world. If that limitation becomes reality, what is to happen to our sense of ethics, skepticism, even honor?
