Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2020/09/12/koyaanisqatsi-meets-fracta.html
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koyaanisqatsi is perhaps my favorite movie of all time. for 17 years i showed it to all of my 6th grade classes. when i first started showing it i had one or two kids who vomited during the human activity sections by the end of my run as a 6th grade teacher i had students who quite literally cried to me about how boring it was.
i’ve probably seen it all the way through 300-350 times and it never gets old for me. i own the criterion collection blu-ray edition. may watch it tonight after my wife finishes watching say yes to the dress tonight.
in some ways similar but very different in aesthetic is herzog’s fata morgana.
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Here’s the embed for those who want it:
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Agreed. It’s a film that has no peers in all of film history. Seeing this trailer reminds me that I’ve never seen it in high definition; this looks gorgeous.
Anytime Godfrey Reggio comes up, I feel obliged to share another of his great works, Evidence. Profoundly persuasive without having to say a damn thing.
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It blew my mind when I first watched it, too! A towering accomplishment, especially given the gear at the time.
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This came out when I was in college. A buddy and I decided to smoke some pot and go see it. We had the screening time wrong and showed up 45 minutes late, so we decided against buying tickets. I’ve yet to see it.
Seeing Koyaanisqatsi as a kid in the 80’s on a rented VHS player (remember when you could rent those in bulky plastic cases?), made a huge impact on my psyche. Clues like Reggio, Glass & Fricke’s vision, seeded throughout the culture were inestimably valuable as a youngster as evidence that there existed possibilities of media and technological arts beyond the grim commercial fodder.
I’m reminded of the Hopi proverb in the film, as I look to the side at the layer of ash that covers the books on the end table where I’m sitting near a drafty window on the west coast in 2020.
Fans of Reggio’s work might also appreciate Hilary Harris’s Organism
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Nice but some kaleidoscopic clips of time-lapse traffic does not quite to deserve the honor of Koyaanasqatsi in the title. imnsho.
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Cool, but what happens if you take the blue pill?
Your bike gets repaired and the main bearings repacked, 90% sure.
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I rewatched Koyaanisqatsi not long ago, and it still had the same impact on me as the first time. It is such a great illustration of man’s coordination/conflict/control relationship with nature.
The “Circulatory System” feels too artificial though. I’m not seeing the underlying heart, pun intended.
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I was in my early 20’s the first time I watched Koyaanisqatsi.
I worked at an indy video store, back when such things still existed; and it was one of the most highly recommended/requested nonfictional films.
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I invoked Koyaanisqatsi not to draw comparison, but to nudge readers who haven’t seen it to copy and paste an unknown word (and film) into Google. And if I had not mentioned it, every comment here would be drawing that comparison.
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First time I saw it was when a roommate in college told me about a show/movie coming into town. I was skeptical at first, but he was a manager at Tower Records up here in Boston, so I took him on his word and went to see it with him.
Live orchestra played the music, and it was shown on a huge screen at The Orpheum Theater in Boston.
Blew…my…mind.
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there is one part of this map that I really like …it’s like a passing city scape with the psychic colours but finji have not updated for the late versioning …so boo
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Agreed - there is a kinship here with some of the sequences.
I came to Koyaanisqatsi via Powaqqatsi, and arrived there from a love of the music of Philip Glass in the late 80s. Equally astounding:
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Cool - two of my favorite things. Here’s my modern-day Koyaanisqatsi I shot during the normal times (might give you the people-are-too-close heebee jeebees): https://vimeo.com/378267998
And my fractal creation device: https://youtu.be/wMeV98BHLVE
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Yep, nothin more retro than last year’s modern. 
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Colby College had a copy of this in the library that my friends and I checked out a number of times. Worked well with being stoned. Sophomore roommate insisted that eating mushrooms and watching it would drive him insane.
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