Mass Society – Koyaanisqatsi, Essay Example

The film Koyaanisqatsi is the creation of Godfrey Reggio, “an inventor of a film style which creates poetic images of extraordinary emotional impact”(Qatsi). According to the website, Koyaanisqatsi is about unbalanced life and is the first of the triology that is Qatsi, which means “life out of balance.”Koyaanisqatsi, as is each film in the triology, has no dialog. It is a collection of images set to a musical score written by Philip Glass. The tone of the film is “an apocalyptic vision of the collision of two different worlds — urban life and technology versus the environment” (Qatsi). This lends to the fact that the viewer is open to come to whatever conclusion that comes to mind, based on how he or she has been moved by the film.

This YouTube clip from the movie first shows an older man, in what appears to be New York City, who works as a sightseeing tour guide, as evidenced by the hat he is wearing, with people walking in all directions past him. He has a solemn, tired look on his face. The remainder of the clip shows various people as characters in this mass society of people everywhere, going about their own worlds, barely noticing each other. There are no smiles in the crowd. Each individual seems to be detached from the world, as if in a trance, moving about mechanically, going “nowhere” to his or her destination. It shows society as just a mass of people milling around while their lives pass them by.

Viewing this clip was very interesting and makes one wonder about the purpose of life and how little time there is to do something purposeful. The clip is very powerful and likely makes the viewer want to watch the movie in its entirety, even though there is no dialog, plot, or form to the film.Qatsi, suggests that this is the point of the movie, that it has no point and is open to interpretation, as with abstract art—“This is its power,” according to Qatsi.

Works Cited

Koyaanisqatsi Best Scene. 2013. YouTube. 7 October 2014. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=woSbHbHd-EY>.

Qatsi. Godfrey Reggio. 2014. 7 October 2014. <http://www.koyaanisqatsi.org/films/koyaanisqatsi.php>.