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The Qatsi Trilogy

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Koyaanisqatsi · Powaqqatsi · Naqoyqatsi

These 3 films are directed by Godfrey Reggio with music composed by Philip Glass and cinematography by Ron Fricke. The trilogy depicts different aspects of the relationship between humans, nature, and technology.

Reggio stated that the Qatsi films are intended to simply create an experience and that "it is up [to] the viewer to take for himself/herself what it is that [the film] means." He also said that "these films have never been about the effect of technology, of industry on people. It's been that everyone: politics, education, things of the financial structure, the nation state structure, language, the culture, religion, all of that exists within the host of technology. So it's not the effect of it's that everything exists within [technology]. It's not that we use technology, we live technology. Technology has become as ubiquitous as the air we breathe..." [Wiki]

Koyaanisqatsi - Life Out of Balance

Amazon Price: $6.57 (as of 06/03/2012)

A 1982 film directed by Godfrey Reggio with music composed by Philip Glass and cinematography by Ron Fricke.

The film consists primarily of slow motion and time-lapse photography of cities and many natural landscapes across the United States. The visual tone poem contains neither dialogue nor a vocalized narration: its tone is set by the juxtaposition of images and music. In the Hopi language, the word Koyaanisqatsi means 'crazy life, life in turmoil, life out of balance, life disintegrating, a state of life that calls for another way of living', and the film implies that modern humanity is living in such a way. [Wiki]

Koyaanisqatsi Trailer

Powaqqatsi: Life in Transformation

Powaqqatsi - Life in Transformation

Amazon Price: $6.55 (as of 06/03/2012)

The 1988 sequel to the experimental 1982 documentary film Koyaanisqatsi, by Godfrey Reggio. It is the second film in the Qatsi trilogy.

Powaqqatsi is a Hopi word meaning "parasitic way of life" or "life in transition". While Koyaanisqatsi focused on modern life in industrial countries, Powaqqatsi, which similarly has no dialogue, focuses more on the conflict in third world countries between traditional ways of life and the new ways of life introduced with industrialization. As with Koyaanisqatsi and the third and final part of the 'Qatsi' trilogy, Naqoyqatsi, the film is strongly related to its soundtrack, written by Philip Glass. Here, human voices (especially children's and mainly from South America and Africa) appear more than in Koyaanisqatsi, in harmony with the film's message and images. [Wiki]

Powaqqatsi Trailer

Naqoyqatsi: Life as war

Naqoyqatsi

Amazon Price: $19.96 (as of 06/03/2012)

A documentary film released in 2002; it is the third and final film of the Qatsi trilogy by Godfrey Reggio and scored by Philip Glass.. The film focuses on society's transition from a natural environment to a technology-based industrial environment.

The name of the film is a Hopi word meaning "life as war". In contrast to the first two parts, the majority of Naqoyqatsi was created not by filming in the real world, but by using archive footage and stock images, manipulated and processed digitally on non-linear editing workstations and intercut with specially-produced CGI. Reggio described the process as "virtual cinema." [Wiki]

Naqoyqatsi Trailer

Essence of Life

A short documentary about the film Koyaanisqatsi

Evidence

Evidence looks into the eyes of children watching television - in this case Walt Disney's "Dumbo". Though engaged in a daily routine, they appear drugged, retarded, like the patients of a mental hospital. Evidence is about the behavior of children watching television - an activity whose physiological aspects have been overlooked in the current controversy surrounding television. [more]