Koyaanisqatsi: Life Out of Balance

File Under: Culture

Koyaanisqatsi: Life out of Balance is a 1982 film directed by Godfrey Reggio with music composed by minimalist composer Philip Glass and cinematography by Ron Fricke.

The film consists primarily of slow motion and time-lapse photography of cities and natural landscapes across the United States. The visual tone poem contains neither dialogue nor a vocalized narration: its tone is set by the juxtaposition of images and music. In the Hopi language, the word Koyaanisqatsi means ‘crazy life, life in turmoil, life out of balance, life disintegrating, a state of life that calls for another way of living’, and the film implies that modern humanity is living in such a way.

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