Koyaanisqati

After watching the film Koyaanisqatsi: Life out of Balance,  I find that the film had an emphasis on human’s rapid expansion, and lack of attention to the environment. The reason I get this impression is mainly because of the connections that the film made at the beginning with its opening on the environment. While in the daytime and the picture was of the environment the music was rather upbeat, and when the music was darker there was more shadows and smoke, elements that are more commonly associated with things that many not be good. By using those images with the music when the humans arrive in the environment, and begin to use the resources around them the “bad” music began to play to infer that the arrival of people was a bad event. After the association is made it is built upon through the rest of the movie with the scene where humans partially use the environment. Then continues as larger cities are built and the environment is no longer visible.

To further the idea of human waste once the city is built there are many scenes where the waste, and lack of care for the environment are shown through different means from trash filled streets with empty public areas, to manufacturing companies rapidly using a lot of the same material. After more footage of humans continuing to live through life in their cities using more materials it cuts back to footage of a rocket taking off after images of a barren wasteland are shown to signify that all the resources in the area are gone and the humans need to move on. After the entire film ends its point has been made clear by tying elements together, and then associating them with other images later to show what the films creator believes is good or bad.