KOYAANISQATSI

A former member of the Christian Brothers Teaching Order, Director Godfrey Reggio does not consider himself a filmmaker; KOYAANISQATSI is meant to be his first and last film. Reggio's film went from concept to completion in seven years, a monumental project that integrates images, music and ideas non-verbally. Desiring to show ordinary daily life from another point of view (i.e. from an alien's standpoint), Reggio defies the conventions of filmmaking to create an avant-garde work designed to be a magical experience for the audience, affecting the instincts, rather than the mind. The result produces a “drugless high.” Composer Philip Glass (“Einstein on the Beach” and “Satyagraha”) wedded his modular-form style of trance-inducing music to the screen's spectacular images of cityscapes, clouds, nighttime traffic patterns, the moon, people, natural and man-made landscapes, a modern world seen as a “mass of grid patterns.” A new technical process to produce the images was created by Ron Fricke, combining time-lapse techniques with multiple exposures that are in perfect harmony with the soundtrack. KOYAANISQATSI (pronounced koy-yanna-scott-see) is a Hopi word meaning “life out of balance,” very apt for a film spanning earth's creation to its apocalyptic end; a prophetic protest against ultra-tech. “KOYAANISQATSI is a slick, naive, chic, maddening, sometimes very beautiful movie. . .remarkably seductive. . .frequently hypnotic. . .emotionally moving.” – Vincent Canby, New York Timess