” POWAQQATSI ” …Film Review

PEDRO’S WORLD OF CINEMA

” POWAQQATSI ”

USA 1988 dir godfrey reggio

2nd part of eventual trilogy,”LIFE IN TRANSFORMATION”,
this time godfrey takes his cinematographer(graham berry+leonidas zourdoumis) around predominately, the third world ,beginning with a human chain of workers carrying bags of slag or mud up a mud hill…with phillip glass’s building music, again we have reggio’s love of the horror/beauty image…we see countless polluted cities with suns setting,poverty dressed up with bright saris,toiling workers ekeing out existances in mesmerising rythms+repetitions…

all this human toil+struggle begins to subtly change into harmony+rythms as villagers introduce song+dance+ritual in their daily lives…the shelters are human scale,everyone is included…there is a strong sense of common purpose…men rowing together catching fish…so when we see the first sari-clad figure struggle with choking traffic to cross the road ,you can see where reggio is going,now big inhuman cities appear(hong kong with its mountains of identical apartments…a boy swallowed up by the dust of a passing lorry(mere inches away)…what fate progress? what have we gained + what have we lost?

the film has more heart than the first,koyaanisqatsi,as it focusses on people,their daily lives,the dignity+strength of the simple struggle for survival—and more flowingly poetic images than the 3rd,naqoiqatsi(sic)
which had seductive CGI imagery(clever but ultimately a little soulless)

glass introduces appropriate eastern themes in his work and i wondered what the team would make of a post 9/11 world + the harmonious rise of china???

**** outta 5

so what do you think?
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