Life out of balance

The Helsinki Festival had a special focus on the American composer / pianist Philip Glass this year. I went to see his beautiful piano recital, but of more interest was the film Koyaanisqatsi for which he had composed the music. The festival also presented the film in the Music Centre of Helsinki with live music, but I opted for the cheap version in the cinema (perfect!).

The film was absolutely gorgeous and the theme was obviously close to my heart: the exploitation of the planet by humans, the consequences and the craziness of it all. The film is directed by Godfrey Reggio and it was made already thirty years ago. However, the theme is even more actual now. In fact, it is devastating to see how things have only got worse. When will we learn that our way of life is not good for us or our surroundings?

The word 'koyaanisqatsi' is Hopi indian language, meaning 'life out of balance'. How wonderful that they have a specific word for that, it is a truly useful word. The film excellently portrays how life is out of balance: that is, humans and the nature are not in balance and humans are not in balance with themselves.

The film starts with amazing images from somewhere in Arizona or Nevada desert. At first, you think that it will be a film of the beauty of the nature. But suddenly, the tone of the music changes and emerge the tractors, the huge machines turning around the soil, explosions, oil rigs. Exploitation of the planet. After the beautiful images, it's a shock. The film goes on to show images of cities and human constructions. 8-lane highways in the USA. Skyscrapers. Big cities. You are simultaneously aghast but also admiring the capacity of the engineers to create and manipulate our environment. A capacity that is so grand that it makes you a little scared as well. 

However, all these constructions and destruction of the nature doesn't seem to make us happy. A sequence of the film with fast and almost psychedelic music and images makes you think of the craziness of our busy and stressed out lives. Like ants working working working without any idea why, no time to think what we are doing and why. And could there be any other way. We don't treat only the nature in a shameful way but also other nations, other people.

The films ends with the explosion of a spacecraft,  I guess the images were of Challenger exploding after its take-off. It was a great symbol for the capacity of the humans to create unimaginable things, but also how this engineering intelligence and greediness lead us to our own fall.