Powaqqatsi

Since the release of Laudato Si' and the Amazon Synod, the film Powaqqatsi has come to mind every now and again. I can't help but say it was - as much as Koyaanisqatsi - prophetic.

"Powaqqatsi" is a Hopi neologism meaning roughly "a parasitic way of life". In Godfrey Reggio's view, if I remember correctly, specifically: the northern hemisphere vamping off the southern hemisphere. Yet it also includes generally the first world vamping the third world.

Take these words from Pope Saint John Paul II:

"So it is that Christ the Judge speaks of 'one of the least of the brethren', and at the same time he is speaking of each and of all. Yes. He is speaking of the whole universal dimension of injustice and evil. He is speaking of what today we are accustomed to call the North-South contrast. Hence not only East-West, but also North-South: the increasingly wealthier North, and the increasingly poorer South.

"Yes, the South — becoming always poorer; and the North — becoming always richer. Richer too in the resources of weapons with which the superpowers and blocs can mutually threaten each other. And they threaten each other — such an argument also exists — in order not to destroy each other. (...)

"Nevertheless, in the light of Christ’s words, this poor South will judge the rich North. And the poor people and poor nations — poor in different ways, not only lacking food, but also deprived of freedom and other human rights — will judge those people who take these goods away from them, amassing to themselves the imperialistic monopoly of economic and political supremacy at the expense of others. (…)

"May justice and peace embrace (cf. Ps 84(85):10) once again at the end of the second millennium which prepares us for the coming of Christ, in glory. Amen."

--Pope Saint John Paul II, Homily in Edmonton, Canada, Sept 17, 1984

Koyaanisqatsi, the first in the Qatsi trilogy, will always be my favourite over Powaqqatsi. I haven't seen the third. The first just had this non-stop kinetic...trance-like quality, but better it really gets you to re-see, to see anew how the technology of our world is so ubiquitous you simply can't see it for what it is. But just with images and music. Nothing else.

Powaqqatsi, though again just images and music, gets a little more tendentious (sort of the same reason why I'm done with Terrence Malick's films, post Thin Red Line), a little bit more formatted so to speak. Still, it has a quality of its own. The images and the music (which, as in Koyaanisqatsi, act as distinct overlays to each other, never the music as a harmonious accompaniment to the images) forming a whole create some really powerful moments.

There's this one moment early in the film where the camera is panning across a row of children's faces, in slow motion, and there's this one girl's face beginning serious, almost solemn, from the right side of the screen, and within a couple seconds by the time her face is on the left side of the screen, it erupts into a smile, and then completely explodes, again all in slow motion, into laughter. The first time I saw that it was like the flat screen evaporated and I was in some kind of communion. Film is amazing.

Here's a clip from the start of the film (the person who posted it for some reason flipped the right with the left of the screen):


Philip Glass - Serra Pelada (1988) from masalladel oido on Vimeo.


Here's another clip:

Powaqqatsi (Fragmento) from abZurdo on Vimeo.