Quartile rating: 7/10 · 1 rating
Takes us to locations all around the US and shows us the heavy toll that modern technology is having on humans and the earth. The visual tone poem contains neither dialogue nor a vocalized narration: its tone is set by the juxtaposition of images and the exceptional music by Philip Glass.
Koyaanisqatsi is a singular cinematic experience that essentially invented the feature-length visual essay documentary as we know it. Its cinematography is genuinely exceptional — Ron Fricke's sweeping time-lapses, slow-motion urban tableaux, and breathtaking landscape compositions remain among the most striking images ever committed to film. Novelty earns a top mark because the film is utterly one-of-a-kind in conception and execution: no dialogue, no narration, pure juxtaposition of image and Philip Glass's hypnotic score to construct a poetic environmental argument. Plot is rated low by design — the film deliberately eschews conventional narrative structure, so rating it on traditional plot terms reflects its absence rather than failure, though even as a visual argument its thematic arc can feel repetitive. Acting is not applicable and rated accordingly at 1. The ending, with the falling rocket debris and Hopi prophecy text, is appropriately haunting and resonant, though not as startling as the film's middle passages.