Godfrey Reggio

(YouTube Streaming, July 2021) I already knew from watching films like Samsara that I have to approach non-narrative documentaries differently. It’s best to be in a receptive mood, to minimize distractions, to stop trying to make it all make sense, and to essentially give yourself up to the film. While Koyaanisqatsi has given rise to a small number of similar films featuring strong imagery with non-existent narration, it does remain legendary for a number of reasons: A provocative juxtaposition of striking images teasing meaning even when there is none; an anthemic score by Philip Glass; and an increasingly striking time-capsule aspect to capturing American city life circa-1980. The effect remains just on this side of hypnotic, even if the formula has been reused many times since there. Working with technical means that would now be considered primitive at an age of 4K cameras with built-in time distortion effects, director Godfrey Reggio accumulated years of interesting footage into a generally coherent whole, moving from depictions of nature to that of life in Los Angeles and New York City in the early 1980s. There’s no narration, but in the tradition of Man with a Movie Camera, you do get some mileage out of juxtaposition of sequences. Some of the effects feel sophomoric — comparing city streets with circuit boards is not as clever as it once was, and the film’s end text suggesting “life out of balance” is similarly too blunt. I’m not sure I was following the script when the film created feelings of wonder and amusement at bustling city life, cars self-organizing into a flow of traffic, humans self-directing without collisions and industrial production processes all working to plan. Still, the film always has a striking image to offer, so it can be appreciated on a surface level without getting into the confused themes. One thing that’s hard not to notice is how the film becomes increasingly dated the closer it gets to the human. Scenes of nature are timeless; long shots of cities could have been filmed recently; medium-scale material suffers from car styling; close-ups are irremediably dated to 1980, although in a rather charming way — there’s a juxtaposition of a disco dance floor with a primitive videogame that almost says it all. Glass’ score is so well known at this point that it acts as a hype song: by the time the trumpets of “Pruit Igoe” come rolling by to sights of intentional explosions (which can be interpreted as renewal rather than simple destruction), it’s as close as the film comes to a fist-pumping action scene. In other words, Koyaanisqatsi still works really well, even if there are now TV and streaming channels dedicated to offshoots of this kind of filmmaking. It’s a compelling package, and something as different from classic filmmaking as can be.