The 1982 movie ‘Koyaanisqatsi’ is a movie where the combination of stunning visuals and a pulsating Philip Glass soundtrack make the need for commentary redundant.
It is a nightmarish vision of a world spiralling out of control.
The movie’s arresting title comes from the Hopi language and an on-screen translation of the word tells us that this can be translated either as “a state of life that calls for another way of living” or even more starkly “a life disintegrating”.
The central premise of ‘Koyaanisqatsi’ is that the effect of technology on mankind means that we humans are now indivisible from the machines we have created. In one memorable sequence, the speeded up images of a mass of travellers flooding onto an escalator is juxtaposed with a production line of processed sausages.
Director Godfrey Reggio succinctly sums up the movie’s message:
“It’s not that we use technology, we live technology…….. There seems to be no ability to see beyond, to see that we have encased ourselves in an artificial environment that has remarkably replaced the original, nature itself. We do not live with nature any longer; we live above it, off of it as it were. “
The pace of change brought on by technology makes the movie even more relevant now than when it was made
This is the trailor to get a taste if you haven’t seen it:
