Life Out of Balance

This minimalist documentary opens with brilliant shots of nature: canyons, sand dunes, and crashing waves, to name a few. Directory Godfrey Reggio’s images depict the majesty of nature and each frame commands respect. The shots however, do have a rather ominous feel. The coinciding music assists in portraying nature as a formidable, mighty force. There is a frightening power in the billowing waves and the sweeping clouds. Slowly and surely the focus of the film transitions to humans and destruction. There is a type of progression suggesting that first there is nature, then the destruction of nature, and lastly human life, as we know it. Time-lapse sequences show different forms of human behavior over a period of time and patterns emerge. Philip Glass’ accompanying music – constant and drilling – adds a sense of agitation and urgency to the actions.

           

I couldn’t fully and committedly focus on this documentary. I felt the repetitious, aggressive music digging grooves in my brain, like those created by the foot traffic of Reggio’s subjects. This documentary tried my patience and tested my attention span. I busied myself by multi-tasking and trying to be productive. Instead of calmly surrendering myself to this one thing, I was preoccupied in multiple things, whether physically or mentally. Perhaps you can imagine my surprise when I finally reached the end of the film and saw the definition. Unbeknownst to me, I had been exemplifying the very “crazy life” and “life out of balance” to which the film refers. I realized that Reggio had in fact done an impressive job of leading the audience to his intended conclusion. With the concrete understanding of Koyaanisqatsi, I became aware that the feelings of chaos and hurriedness had been aroused in me simply from the director’s audio and visual choices. The definition was a conclusion, which solidified the purpose of the film, though I had not seen it before.

Since I did not have the best experience with his contribution to Koyaanisqatsi, I did some exploring to see which, if any, of Philip Glass' music I might like. Being a dancer, I was interested to see if Philip Glass' work had ever been used in ballet. It turns out his music has been used by a few well-known choreographers, which was exciting for me to discover. I found that the prestigious San Francisco Ballet performed a work called Glass Pieces by Jerome Robbins in which the fourth and fifth movements of Glass' six movement chamber composition, Glassworks, was used. The video below is of the company performing the piece with Glass' Rubric and Facades in the background.