Gofrey Reggio's POWAQQATSI (1988)

In this continuation of Koyaanisqatsi, Godfrey Reggio takes the audience outside of America to witness both the wonders and brutality of the modern world. This is a film that opens with one of the more staggering set pieces/sequences/requiems, whatever you call it, as we see dozens if not over a hundred laborers lugging giant bags of what must be dirt or something more precious up the muddiest hill ever (next to Woodstock '69). Philip Glass's music is equally haunted and entrancing, like witnessing the world waking nightmare imaginable that also includes at least one injured (or dead?) Worker being taken by some others up the hill.

All of this is in slow-motion and it is so mesmerizing that it takes about an hour to realize that there won't be anything quite up to that level for the rest of the picture. This does not mean there is a lack of exquisite, terrifying landscapes and cityscapes and curious faces of citizens of countries and cities in South America and East Asia (nothing is ever really marked as to where we are, we just have to take some guesses based on cultural landmarks or the few signs, like when Reggio is in some Asian city as by the neon signs). But with some exceptions he can only wow us so much before, and I am taking this critique from someone else (or several) I read that called this a clip show of National Geographic Tableaus (ok that last word is mine).

I think that for me it is not a problem so much as a feature that Reggio bounces so much from the hard work and hardened faces (even of the children, oh that one donkey getting beat by that kid stands out) to the aerial shots overlooking the giant buildings and rows of cars that he I wanted to make connections and the film resists it all the way. There is one point where he just has his camera on a television showing a milky montage of commercials and news programs (this is why you may see Christie Brinkley and Dan Rather credited here under "archive footage), but it happens just that once because... media is melting our brains and taking us away from seeing the wonders of wonderment.

There clearly are some contrasts to be made between what humans have created through the onslaught of buildings and cities, though I'm not sure if what he shows of the difficult lives and labor of the working classes in these South American countries (if that is where they all are) makes that look superior. But maybe that isn't his point, if he even has one; the title we learn at the end means more or less "parasitic way of life." In that sense, there are thematic links to be made, especially from the opening, as to how much work and work and work take away what is so rich and joyful in human beings. 

At the same time the score by Glass is an odd counterpoint since his symphonies (one of which reused iconically but Fittingly in The Truman Show) are so beautiful much of the time.  There are some unforgettable and perfectly Surrealistic images and movements - that one moment where you don't quite know what you are even looking at until that airplane comes into view backwards on the left side of rhe frame, revealing we are seeing an apartment complex on the bottom, is beyond words for how it made me go "whoa" by myself - and yet I would be lying if I didn't find some images of the local people or their dusty and muddy and wretched settings to get repetitive and redundant.

I am a few paragraphs in, really near the end, and realize my National Geographic comparison could sound flippant, like that makes it minor when Reggio is adventurous and interested in what he is doing, and giving everyone across the world things to see that they otherwise either wouldn't seek out or not get exposed to (say on national TV). At the same time, I don't know if this impressive but languid film shows me things I didn't already get out of the (for me superior) Koyaanisqatsi.