Koyaanisqatsi
By Kit Macdonald
"Human life and nature not only coexist, but must also learn to relate to each other throughout their history."
Anyone put in the mood for fascinating, non-narrative state-of-the-nation documentaries by Adam Curtis's excellent recent series Shifty could do a lot worse than heading to Phenomena and catching a groundbreaking classic of the form, Godfrey Reggio's Koyaanisqatsi, from 1982. This captivating, wordless piece of work explores the imbalance between nature and modern civilization, juxtaposing slow-motion and time-lapse cinematography to create a meditative visual essay on the acceleration of human activity and its environmental and societal impacts.
Philip Glass's masterful soundtrack adds much to a film that was shot over several years and in diverse locations, and whose title comes from the Hopi language and means "life out of balance".