For me, obviously, I was somewhat underwhelmed by "Koyaanisqatsi." Which isn't at all to say I didn't like it, because I did, and the visuals were literally stunning. Reggio captures the majesty of nature and human creation side by side in a jaw-dropping way. My problem with the movie as an avant-garde film in this course is that, at 86 minutes, I believe it needs more to say with all that time. It was frustrating to watch such a long movie whose only point seemed to be: Nature is awesome, and Man has tarnished that. The films we have watched this semester have all been very intellectually complex and been as much about changing the film medium as the ideas they present; at times this film reminded me of "2 or 3 Things I Know About Her," but without that film's deeply curious sense of thought. The other fundamental problem that bothers me is that the pure & perfect natural world that Reggio focuses on is completely devoid of man, and then he contrasts this with the tackiness and industrialization of man. It feels like he could be advocating that man should not be here rather than that we should be finding a different path in life, which I do not support. But, maybe I am wrong, and he is just observing the changes that we have caused. Still, it's a beautiful film with a beautiful score. I just wanted it to delve a little deeper, and in a more condensed fashion.
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