Koyaanisqatsi

"Life out of balance" is what Koyaanisqatsi allegedly means in the language of the North American Hopi Indians. Collaborating with Philip Glass (soundtrack) and co-screenwriter Ron Fricke (cinematography), Godfrey Reggio made this famous visual essay in 1982 about life in North America. It took three years to shoot the images and another three years to edit them and compose the soundtrack. It was the first film that told its story without a plot or comment.
At first, the camera slowly glides across the deserts and gorges of the western United States, across the vast plains and rock formations that visualise earth before the arrival of human life. Gradually, man arrives, developing and cultivating that expansive landscape. And then Reggio shows what he is really interested in and what he also based (1988) and (2002) on: the place that man with his technology occupies in nature. Using repetition and acceleration, the film shows the endless traffic flow and assembly lines and the seemingly self-organising chaos of human life. Despite the suggestive title, Reggio always claimed the film does not depict a "problem". According to him, simply shows the primacy of technology in our lives.