I have seen this movie more than ten years ago and could not find it in a video store since then. It is therefore more remarkable that the images, both visual and auditory, have stayed with me for so long. This is a difficult movie to compare to others because it is unconventional. It relies mostly on sound and stunning visual images of the quality that one may find in the National Geographic. The narrative is not prescriptive and allows the viewer to construct the meaning. In this way the message, if one chooses to see a message in it, becomes all the more powerful. Leaving the cinema, I remember having the kind of feeling that I had when leaving the Tate gallery in London. This is Art! It is also social comment and documentary and one can not remain neutral towards the issues addressed in the picture. If the purpose of both art and documentary is to shock and create awareness of issues, in Powaqqatsi these two genres find a perfect marriage! If one has to group it with other movies, I would think of something like Quest for Fire and a French movie, Le Ball. These movies share only one thing and that is that almost no spoken dialogue is used. The viewer only uses pictures and sounds to create meaning. This takes the experience out of the cerebral sphere and allows one to feel it more. Subsequent reports of one's experience then tend to become watered down because one has to use words to describe it. Enough words for now! I hope that I can see this movie someday again, and preferably on the big screen.
Review of Powaqqatsi
