DOCUMENTARIES

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Summary: Captivating

Samsara - the circle of life according to the Hinduist/Buddhist point of view. A quite comforting concept, especially when you're confronted with pictures as powerful as these. And somehow such comfort is needed, you might not find it within evolutionary theory. Evolution as we see it happen in this movie has its cruel moments; it's hunters and prey. Everbody needs to survive, everybody needs to eat. While it is true that the population of hunter species is always in concordance with its prey population, this isn't helping at all towards understanding, or towards ease. Parents be advised: This one is very graphic, especially because of the IMAX format. Everything looks bigger than life, and it really is.

After a powerful beginning, we are being introduced to one of the last large areas where wildlife has been given the chance to prosper, guarded by human beings against human beings. We see gnu herds of unbelievable dimensions, we accompany them on their way, being hunted by predators. We are being presented with the majestic forces of nature and of life at work there, and we are getting a glimpse of what might have been not just a local phenomenon. The IMAX^® format provides the viewer with great camera angles and pass-overs; and together with the music of Hans Zimmer this is an impressive reflection both on life and on our responsibility to protect it.

May 6th, 1999

Summary: The strength of nature

Life thriving everywhere around mankind, and mankind has nothing else to do than to exploit and kill it. Yeah, maybe. But maybe not entirely: While the rain forests are burning and our environment is being polluted every day, time and again, that's not what everybody of us is doing. Maybe we just don't have the power of stopping it, but maybe we do. There are a lot more people out there than we might think, caring about nature, caring about humanity. It's not too late, nature is stronger than we usually think. Nature will oulive mankind. The point is that it isn't nature we'd ultimately be killing, but ourselves.

When I'm confronted with films like these, I realize that nature is strong, and we are the weak. Not nature depends upon us - we depend upon nature. And I'm sure that even with lots of stupid non-caring morons out there, mankind is bright enough to safe nature, and by that, also itself. This movie is very implicit and tender in expressing the dangers towards the Amazon region and its inhabitants, but there is also a lot of sadness in it, sort of a sense of what still might be coming.

May 6th, 1999

Summary: Lame, overtly pedagogical

There is possibly no greater view of our planet than from the orbit, and thanks to IMAX^®, we are being given quite a chance to see it. When you see our planet from up there, you recognize that within all this beauty there also lies fragility. This movie is a tour around the planet from an outer-space perspective.

But while supporting awareness of our responsibility towards our planet, this excursion doesn't do this in the gentle way it would be best to do it, but in its explicity it is almost annoying. We got the message, but they can't stop repeating it. But within this, and I too am not free of that kind of preaching, within this there lies a sense of desperateness. And this might very well be justified.

May 6th, 1999

Summary: Intentionally silly

Between obviously intentional cheesiness and extraordinary inventiveness, this journey into the third dimension is quite an entertaining one, mostly also because it at no time pretents to be anything but a nice piece of entertainment, with a certain scary touch. Thus featuring Elvira is quite fitting. This is a mixture of documentary and comedy, and it's a nice departure from daily routine, also from watching routine. And with 3d, even the opening and closing titles are something worth to be watched.

May 6th, 1999

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Summary: Disturbing and magnificent

Life and death are connected in an inseparable way - which is impressively being illustrated by this film. The fragility of human life when confronted with the forces of nature is made evident here, but there is also courage. The men and women having tried or succeeded to reach the top of Mount Everest did so in spite of what stood against them. They did so because they wanted to achieve it. When there's a will, there's a way. And this way is perhaps one of the most difficult and arduous ones.

Between human tragedies and victories, this movie is both a requiem mourning those who died at Everest, and a monument to those who made it and came back. Those are unforgettable moments when the team we follow has to witness people leaving the base camp, headed to the summit, and the remaining ones somewhat sensing that the others might not come back. But for those who succeed, they'll be able to see what quite a few people were able to see.

see also Diary Entry #38

May 6th, 1999

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Summary: Beautiful

Grand vistas are surrounding us during this flight through the canyon, through its history and present, charting the exploration of the Colorado and showing us the beauty of this magnificent monument of nature. Words are not enough to describe what this movie shows us, so I won't pretend otherwise.

May 6th, 1999

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Summary: Sublime

Just when you think you've seen everything, this film will hit you in your assumed knowledge and audio/visual experience. That is, once you get over the fact that there is no dialog, no obvious story, no predigested material, nothing that would make it easy on you. This is not a film for casual viewing, it is nothing you can just sit and listen through. But how could I possibly explain or approach this with words?

There are at least two underlying concepts behind this film. The most obvious and compelling one, of course, would be the music of Philip Glass. Maybe that's the key to the entire piece even, perhaps it would help to see it as a music video accompanying Glass's music. So let's start with the music then. I first encountered Philip Glass when watching 'The Truman Show', which featured lots of incidental music by Glass, especially from 'Powaqqatsi' ("Anthem") and 'Anima Mundi'. But how do you approach Glass? How do you understand his music? Maybe 'Koyaanisqatsi' itself is the key. Glass is all about intensity arising from simplicity, it is about momentum and speed, it is about repetition with slight variations. Listen to the opening piece of 'Akhnaten', for instance. Nothing seems to happen for a long, long time, but under the surface the music slightly shifts till it has become something entirely different, and you don't even notice what's been going on till it hits you. Same with 'Koyaanisqatsi'. There is almost something mathematical to his music, something about incremental change, sequences approaching a limit, physical waves varying around a central line. Sometimes it may even seem like an odd synthesis between Bach, Schönberg, Bruckner and Tibetan chants. But still it is highly original in itself, and utterly captivating once you allow yourself being sucked into the experience.

The second component, of course, is a photography that exudes a strange mixture of bluntness and subtlety. Both elements for themselves would be an artistic feast, yet taken together, they become a mesmerizing revelation, a strange and highly compelling approach to explain what cannot be explained, to show which cannot be shown. The script seems to be taken from the long discourse about sublimity, starting with Nature, moving towards technology and finally leading to the apocalyptic images of a nuclear explosion; illustrating the stark contrast between danger and beauty, between destruction and creation, this utterly perverse line that constitutes life.

You may not agree with every bit of the underlying simplistic and unidirectional critique of modern civilization, at least I don't. Yet still, the film allows for a different reading as well, making it an artistic masterpiece unlike most you've ever seen or ever will be seeing. If there is any single film you have to see, it has to be this one.

February 12th, 2002

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Summary: Truly enjoying

This movie is fading in and out of the scenery very gently, illustrating thus the true size, the true capabilities of ours to grasp the entirety of this magnificent system of life. The focus is less on the sea but more on human beings, on the influence the sea has on us, on our role in all of this.

This piece also features quite some amazing rides, giving the IMAX^® format the entertainment factor it deserves while at the same time telling a story. With Sting's beautiful song "Fragile" being varied over and over again in the background, the film is one single moment, time is standing still and lets us get into the deep.

May 6th, 1999

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Summary: Utterly Disappointing

Any sequel to 'Koyaanisqatsi' has to live under the mighty shadow of that masterpiece. In any case it may seem difficult, to say the least, to create a follow-up, if not even doomed. There is maybe nothing which could be improved in 'Koyaanisqatsi', nothing that needs to be added. A follow-up could never exceed the perfection of its predecessor, thus it should move into a different direction, maybe even take up a new topic. 'Powaqqatsi' definitely wants to do that, at least in the beginning. 'Koyaanisqatsi' was a rather abstract film, starting with nature and moving into modern civilization. A successor could either zoom into a single aspect, or bring up a new one. It does both: It zooms into civilization in modern times, but this time not in a Western country but under Third World conditions. The focus is India, South America, Kenya and China. The images are focused on the humans rather than nature or abstract structures. So far, everything seems right.

Philip Glass provides a great score, though not as excellent and outstanding as his work in 'Koyaanisqatsi'. "Anthem", the sort-of leitmotif of the first half of the film, is a great piece, yet it stands rather isolated in the rest of the score. But that's not the problem, not at all. The photography of 'Koyaanisqatsi' was perfectly choreographed with the music, both relied upon each other and reinforced their combined message. But with 'Powaqqatsi', this harmony is gone. The problem is not within the music but the pictures and the story.

Almost every single moment in 'Koyaanisqatsi' seemed right, the pace was pefect, carrying the film forward. Yet here, there is no pace. There seems to be no motivation for the combination of music and images. The images themselves are nothing unusual, with some few exceptions. The sequences are almost always played in slow motion - which sort of becomes tedious and seems uninspired. It doesnt create an artistic effect either, as it is the cheapest possible technique. 'Koyaanisqatsi' was art, this is not even a documentary.

What has been controversial in 'Koyaanisqatsi', the one-sided view of civilization, becomes annoying and preposterous towards the end of 'Powaqqatsi', revealing what could otherwise be called a romanticizing of the Third-World as a simplistic anti-modernist sentiment with a certain ideology behind. The "message" is not properly founded upon the images, it is mere conjecture posing as wisdom. Yet it isn't. It's just a bad movie posing as something great.

February 12th, 2002