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Godfrey Reggio’s qatsi trilogy is his response to a fundamental shift in the history of mankind, that of technology taking the fundamental role as our host of life instead of nature. Accordingly, whereas Koyaanisqatsi and Powaqqatsi were based in the northern and southern hemispheres respectively, Naqoyqatsi takes place entirely within the realm of the digitised and manipulated image.

Like its predecessors, Naqoyqatsi is at its best when it packs a visceral punch – when we are bombarded with symbols or snaked at speed through a vortex of numbers, instead of leaving us as passive spectators. Reactions to the film vary with mood: it’s a banal run through of familiar figures and tired symbols; it’s a complex meditation on the greed and aggression prevalent in the contemporary world.
For all its terabytes of wizardry Naqoyqatsi looks quite familiar and is therefore more an elegy than a provocation. An arresting image is never far away though – crash test dummies pleading in an aeroplane, the shades of the dead walking, smoke drifting through poplars before the full force of an explosion hits.

 

Graeme Hobbs on 10th January 2005
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