Gordon Mallonee - Koyaabusqatsi / not sure if it worked the first tiem

The film Koyaabusqatsi has an interesting approach at gaining the viewers attention and getting the meaning across to them. The film portrays the destruction of nature threw human societal build up. It starts off with showing an image of a rocket taking off into space. There is also an image before the rocket of a painting of people drawn on a rock. It looks very primitive. Then the film shows the beauty of nature through the landscapes of different places. The first interaction with humans is a big tractor work the land. Human culture is based around agriculture and because of agriculture the world has been able to reach levels of human population that it should never have been able to and as a result nature is being taken over.

A good example that the film uses to show that nature if being taken over by humans is when the full moon is shown moving through the sky and is then eclipsed by a skyscraper. This portrays the idea that humans can block out nature and no longer need it to be here. The buildings in different scenes where shown reflecting images of nature in its windows. This gives the impression that the buildings are the new nature, a human made nature. More of this human made nature can be seen when images of cars on the interstate are driving. They all look like worker bees or ants going about their jobs without thinking of anything else.

The aesthetics of the film were very good. The way the music and the images interacted was very in sink. When panning over the landscapes of nature the music was very mellow and flowing. When showing people in a subway or driving on the interstate the music was very sped up and full of energy. When showing nature in the film the colors were always very bright, while most of what was man made, besides the lights, where dull in color and not as aesthetically pleasing. One example of this was when images of different flowers where all lines up in bright colors and then later shown was an assortment of different cars all painted differently.

At the end of the film the images come full circle back to the rocket taking off into space. Then the rocket starts to fall apart and explode and you see the engine falling back to the earth in a fireball. Its just more human destruction that symbolizes what will happen to humans that continue to place themselves over nature.