Naqoyqatsi (Naqoyqatsi: Life as War) (2002)
Average Rating: 5.8/10
Reviews Counted: 52
Fresh: 25 | Rotten: 27
The weakest film in Reggio's trilogy.
Average Rating: 5.7/10
Critic Reviews: 17
Fresh: 9 | Rotten: 8
The weakest film in Reggio's trilogy.
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Average Rating: 3.6/5
User Ratings: 4,081
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Movie Info
Filmmaker, philosopher and activist Godfrey Reggio completes the film trilogy he began with Koyaanisqatsi and Powaqqatsi in this visually striking examination of the impact of technology upon our culture. Naqoyqatsi is a word from the Hopi language which roughly translates as "war as a way of life" or "a life of killing each other," and in this film Reggio uses a intense barrage of images - most of which have been drawn from existing film footage and then altered using a variety of optical and
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All Critics (59) | Top Critics (20) | Fresh (26) | Rotten (27) | DVD (9)
If the message seems more facile than the earlier films, the images have such a terrible beauty you may not care.
Top CriticAt its best, Naqoyqatsi awakens the eyes, but it doesn't really do much to tweak the conscience. It's difficult to feel a sense of outrage while you're in a trance.
If you open yourself up to Mr. Reggio's theory of this imagery as the movie's set ... it can impart an almost visceral sense of dislocation and change.
Filmmaking at its purest and most visceral.
Pretentious, ponderous and redundant."
Feels like a bloated mass of data without much coherence.
An extensive and virtually flawless presentation of one of American cinema's most fascinatingly singular achievements.
Too much of a good thing being bombarded with an hour and a half of trippy images that appear to be lecturing me on how miserable, yet strangely beautiful, modern life is.
The only feeling one comes away from Naqoyqatsi is admiration of its technological virtuosity--certainly not what Reggio intended.
Socially aware, but so nihilistic and fatalistic that it's irrelevant since it is unwilling to push towards the social change that the prior films supported so adamently.
Reggio's ever-evolving style in this film doesn't have the same mesmerizing quality as his previous efforts...but nobody makes more accessible non-narrative conceptual cinema.
The collected sum of the images equal a work of kitsch art.
Instead of helping us step out of our world, which has become inundated with imagery, Naqoyqatsi gives us more of the same, and our eyes glaze over.
The saturation bombing of Reggio's images and Glass' evocative music ... ultimately leaves viewers with the task of divining meaning.
Like its two predecessors, 1983's Koyaanisqatsi and 1988's Powaqqatsi, the cinematic collage Naqoyqatsi could be the most navel-gazing film ever.
Can be viewed as pure composition and form -- film as music
Despite its visual virtuosity, 'Naqoyqatsi' is banal in its message and the choice of material to convey it.
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Foreign Titles
- Naqoyqatsi (DE)
- Naqoyqatsi (UK)
