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Koyaanisqatsi Details

1983 DVD Certificate U.gif
  • Rated:
  • 70
  • from 1622 members

KOYAANISQATSI attempts to reveal the beauty of the beast! We usually perceive our world, our way of living, as beautiful because there is nothing else to perceive. If one lives in this world, the globalized world of high technology, all one can see is one layer of commodity piled upon another. In our world the "original" is the .. Read more

Director Godfrey Reggio
Genres Drama

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Koyaanisqatsi

KOYAANISQATSI attempts to reveal the beauty of the beast! We usually perceive our world, our way of living, as beautiful because there is nothing else to perceive. If one lives in this world, the globalized world of high technology, all one can see is one layer of commodity piled upon another. In our world the "original" is the proliferation of the standardized. Copies are copies of copies. 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. Nature has become the resource to keep this artificial or new nature alive.

Director Godfrey Reggio
Studio MGM HOME ENT. (EUROPE) LTD.
Certificate DVD Certificate U.gif
Genres Drama
Language English
Released DVD: 13 Jan 2003
Production year: 1983
Format DVD

  • Critics' reviews (2) of Koyaanisqatsi

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  • 3 stars out of 5

    An offbeat, and often off-beam, documentary-cum-meditation about the decline of western civilisation, using the difference between the untamed American wilderness and hysterical, rush-hour Manhattan as its crux. Director Godfrey Reggio shuns narration in favour of powerful, repetitive music by minimalist composer Philip Glass to match his striking visuals. Made in the early eighties when ecological warnings were starting to take hold, it was, for all its vacuity, a surprising success. The title is a Hopi Indian word meaning “life out of balance”.

    • Radio Times
    • Posted 29 Jan 2006

  • A wildly charitable viewer might describe this as an ecological documentary. Less than 90 minutes transport us from the... read more on Time Out

    • Time Out
    • Posted 04 Nov 2008

  • Most helpful member's review of Koyaanisqatsi

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  • 11 out of 12 people found this review helpful

    Rated - 5 stars

    brilliant art movie

    the music is great and the video images sometimes overly long will last long after you see this, philip glass soundtrack some of the best theme music ever written really adds to the atmosphere, allthough just a collection of video scenes this is ground breaking movie and deserves to be seen on giant plasma screens, a movie that can change your out-look on life.

      • ronald kitching from England
      • Posted 09 Jun 2004 20:42

  • Most recent members' review of Koyaanisqatsi

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  • 9 out of 9 people found this review helpful

    Rated - 3 stars

    Historically Predictable

    Several things are interesting about this film

    The Philip Glass Music; it is almost a perfect match for the images, and for Glass this is about as good as it gets. He can do film music, but little else.

    The images; it looks great, thats because its what you expect. Its full of images of a world we are supposedly losing... do you really want to scrape a living hand to mouth in the wilderness? I dont think so. So its romantacised junk.;

    So visually very nice.... a bit like a long car advert (which came first?) Sort of wallpaper video.

      • A customer from Glasgow
      • Posted 04 Jun 2007 23:07

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Rating breakdown

1,622 Member ratings
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  • 90
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  • 80
326
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258
  • 60
201
  • 50
105
  • 40
76
  • 30
50
  • 20
61
  • 10
33

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      • KOYAANISQATSI attempts to reveal the beauty of the beast! We usually perceive our world, our way of living, as beautiful because there is nothing else to perceive. If one lives in this world, the ...