Koyaanisqatsi - Life Out of Balance

Koyaanisqatsi - Life Out of Balance
by Godfrey Reggio

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DVD Reviews of Koyaanisqatsi - Life Out of Balance

DVD Review: Holds up well despite others overusing its techniques
Summary: 4 Stars

More stunning are images of taxiing 747s coming at us relentlessly. Or a woman in a department store standing mesmerized before a bank of television sets. Or rows upon rows upon rows upon rows of identical project housing in St. Louis. Or a shot of congested freeways that pans up to a billboard for "fun in the sun." Or an aircraft carrier that flippantly and--to me--arrogantly displays "E-Mc2" across its surface. And of course, the last shot is really special, but I won't spoil it for anyone who hasn't seen the film.

Yet despite its undeniable visual impact, I think there is a serious flaw in Reggio's film, one that he now tries to backpedal on. I remember when this film was released in 1983 and it was never discussed then as a possible ode to technology. Reggio wanted us to look at the pictures of the smokestacks and land-diggers and skyscrapers and recoil. Philip Glass even confirmed at a recent talk on the film that if Reggio is saying now that he wanted to present technology in all its shining glory, the "belly of the beast," so to speak, he's changing his tune. The film, it can be argued (and Roger Ebert, for one, has argued) doesn't work because we aren't shown enough of the ugly side of technology, we are oftentimes in this movie simply shown technology and expected to find the sight off-putting. Many people in Third World countries, as Glass pointed out, think the "Grid" sequemence is the most glorious part of the movie.

The transfer to DVD is good. Some people below are complaining about some of the images not being great when they fail to realize much of it is stock shots blown up from 16mm. (A lot of the "Vessels" video falls into this category, for example.) This film will never look as good its sequels anyway because when Reggio started he wasn't thinking of theatrical release, nor did he have the budget for it.

As for the rest of the DVD, I would have liked to see some more "goodies"--the 25 minute interview with Glass and Reggio is okay, but only okay, and most of it consists of Reggio's talking head. (And boy, can that guy talk. To think he once took a vow of silence as a monk boggles the mind. Maybe he's making up for lost time.) There are trailers for all the "Qatsi" films and--incredibly--subtitles in French and Spanish. They merely translate the meaning of the word "Koyaanisqatsi" at the end of the film, as well as the "Prophecies" that, if you ask me, are best left untranslated. Some people have had issues with the audio remix. Sounds good to me--more balanced than the original theatrical release and VHS tape, which tended to be loud and shrill in the horns, especially in the "Pruit Igoe" section. I listened to the DVD both on audiophile headphones and [top-of-the-line] loudspeakers and my only complaint is the volume level is low. I had to "blast" my receiver to get average room volume.

Overall, though, this is a welcome release since the last home video dub was that fuzzy VHS tape from about 1986. MGM should have done a better job with extras--the whole presentation looks a little quick and shoddy. As for the debate about the matting, again MGM could have solved this easily, if they'd been thinking, by simply encoding the film in its TV ratio on one side of the disc and its movie ratio on the other side, as many other DVDs in my collection are presented. I wish the Criterion people would have gotten their hands on this--they'd have done it right. I have a feeling someday after the release of the third film, they'll box them all up and issue a "Special Slipcase Edition" or whatever, with extras that should have been here in the first place. That's Hollywood for you.

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