Powaqqatsi

Koyannisqatsi wasn't a copy of anything, so why would anyone expect Powaqqatsi to be a copy of it? Fortunately, I saw this film on the big screen without seeing its predecessor, and I was delighted. The movie begins with a shot of an African diamond mine. You see a miner ascending a ladder in slow-motion, carrying a bag of mud on shoulders, accompanied by a heavy, pounding music. The effects and the music work together to highlight the miner's tiredness and strain. Other images follow, most of them from the "third world." In each case the focus is not a thing, but a quality.

Powaqqatsi revolutionized my concept of the world -- Go ahead and laugh! The film shows a vastness and variety and energy in the world that was beyond anything I could have imagined when I went into the theater. Everything is presented for what it is; there's no Western narrator to reassure you and tell you what everything means. There is perhaps no higher praise for a film than saying it changed the way I think, and Powaqqatsi deserves that praise.

Powaqqatsi may not be the fast passed time lapse world of Koyaanisqatsi and there is nothing wrong with that. This movie is a counter point to Koyaanisqatsi. Reggios's plan was for a three part series I believe the new movie is almost done. This is not North America. Just think of the time envoled in this shoot, the locations, the stunning cinematograghy. This is the real world. A world where many people still live with out electricity, still hold onto the past, work on the land or sea, work hard for very little. This is movie of world culture. Anyway one who puts this movie down is truly living in a bubble. This is not a movie that gets backing money easily this is a movie of sweat and toil. I commend the filmmaker for taking a risk and creating a visual feast of the developing world that we are destroying.

As mentioned earlier by others, this film is basically a weaker

version of Baraka (by Koyaanisqatsi cinematographer Ron Fricke),

a film very much like Powaqqatsi, focussing some more on the

religious rituals of southern hemisphere cultures.

Powaqqatsi definitely is a disappointment as a follow up of

Koyaanisqatsi. There is no consistence of any kind. Some scenes

are going on for way too long (the gold mine sequence in the Serra

Pelada, Brazil is nice but becomes tiresome already before the

main title). Other sequences are uneven and cluttered and we

don't know where we are. The movie is almost entirely overcranked (in slow motion), as

opposed to the perfect combination of time lapse (much of it with

motion blur to make it smoother plus smooth camera panning),

slow motion and the use of stock footage in Koyaanisqatsi which

had a wonderful atmosphere to it and works on many levels.

Powaqqatsi is supposed to make no statement about how things

should be - according to director Godfrey Reggio. Why then the

sequence editing US American tv commercials and military

images (is this evidence of how Reggio felt about Powaq. not

coming close to Koyaanis. in meaning)?

Powaq.'s photography is of great quality, yet many motifs are

simply not interesting enough to be on screen for that long. I have

the feeling that the team simply didn't come home with enough

interesting footage in the can and had to make something out of

what they had in the editing room. The few great shots which lets

us emerge in unfamiliar worlds don't make up for the higher

percentage of footage of no interest whatsoever.

Check Ron Fricke's "Baraka" to see what Powaqqatsi could have

been and should have been.

I also agree about some comments regarding Philip Glass' score.

It is sometimes is flat out corny and sounds very much like what

one might expect in a late 1980s "we are all one world" beer or

cookie commercial. Philip Glass is a great and original composer for symphonic

minimalism, but as a composer of world music he hasn't got the

vein. The Powaq. score is several notches below the magic of

what he did for Koyaanis. Again: Baraka has a better score as well.

Watch Powaqqatsi to ifill yourself in on the second installment of

the ..qatsi trilogy. It's not a bad film, but IMHO Godfrey Reggio was

unable to deliver the footage for this concept. Ron Fricke did it in

"Baraka".

I saw Koyaanisqatsi several times in the late eighties and was truly mesmerized. After that Powaqqatsi was a true disappointment. I didn't understand it, to be honest.

Many years later I bought the DVDs and saw them both recently. I still like Koyaanisqatsi, even if it couldn't meet my great expectations. But now Powaqqatsi emerged as a true beauty!

I find the photography and music far superior to that of Koyaanisqatsi. Real people, instead of land- and cityscapes (even if wonderful). Some of the Powaqqatsi scenes are simply breathtaking. African women in clear red cloth against the desert sand, the introductory (horrible) scene from the Brazilian mine, etc, etc.

I strongly recommend all those that were utterly disappointed 10 years ago to see Powaqqatsi again!

The imaginative slow-motion documentary without any line,sequence, camera just goes through nature , cities and public over third world counties. Everydays routines seems amazing , ordinary motions put in slow are breath-taking.Sense for camera scenes and views and extraordinary shots make this one worth to see. Plus mixed with Philip Glass's composed music - it is relaxing and mild. Also you can find some scenes showing our world going to destructive end and the most moving scene in the end when there is shown that we mostly even can not see pictures like these because this "kind" of world is situated behind a certain curtain, for most of us hard to see through - we live above and look only to our reflections.