KOYAANISQATSI
ko.yaa.nis.katsi (from the Hopi language), n. 1. crazy life. 2. life in turmoil. 3. life disintegrating. 4. life out of balance. 5. a state of life that calls for another way of living.
Of late I've found myself lacking in the area of frustration tolerance, combined with a reduced patience quotient I discover I'm getting far more hyper than is probably good for me. My benchmark symptoms for this sort of thing are my media habits - I keep starting new books, then failing to finish them; sitting down to watch TV, then channel hopping the evening away; surfing the net for hours, without achieving a single thing.
So when I slid Koyaanisqatsi into my DVD player I half expected to turn it off within fifteen minutes. After all it was described to me as moving pictures with soundtrack - no dialog, no plot. Yes, I've watched some weird shit in my time but I really didn't think this film would go down well given my current mood.
I could not have been more wrong. It was exactly what I needed.
Yet when I first sat down and thought how to describe Koyaanisqatsi I got stuck. As ever I was trying to be objective. After all if you want subjective go watch it yourself - besides I'm not sure I can explain how it's one of the most profound pieces of art I've ever encountered when I found the pictures blurry, the score mildly irritating, and half-way through I spent ten minutes feeling like falling asleep.
The blurb on the case says things like spell-binding, rich in beauty and detail, mesmerizing and thought provoking, stimulates the mind, and I can't disagree with any of that. The blurb is also spot-on when it asserts it becomes a new and different film every time you watch it. Looking at what other people say about Koyaanisqatsi I think it's fair to say most people see the film as some sort of affirmation. Opinions on what's being affirmed are split right down the middle - it's a pessimist versus optimist thing essentially. So when you watch it you're going to see all your preconceptions about the world reflected back at you.
I'm a pessimist by nature so I tend to agree with the title of the film. But I was intrigued. So I watched it again to see if I could spot what the optimists were on about. I managed it too for the most part. But I failed right at the end when I found myself asking two things:
- What about the individual worlds of the individual people?
- Why is better better when sufficient is sufficient?
So in the final analysis it all comes down to empathy, and it appears I have far to much empathy to ever make a convincing Optimist.