.Life Out Of Balance.

Philip Glass is more than just a composer, he has attained the enviable status of mass-culture phenomenon.Of all these scores, perhaps the finest is Koyaanisqatsi, for it allowed Glass to transpose his penchant for non-narrative drama into a cinematic context.
Directed by Godfrey Reggio, an ex-priest who became a social worker and street activist, Koyaanisqatsi takes its title from the Hopi Indian language, and it translates approximately as "life out of balance".

The film, which has no dialogue or plot, contrasts placid, panoramic photography of unspoiled nature at its grandest with hyperkinetic scenes of urban life and environmental despoilation and lets the images speak for themselves.

What sounds like a simple-minded notion turned out to be surprisingly compelling, thanks in no small part to Glass's score. Reggio gave Glass unprecedented power in shaping Koyaanisqatsi, even going so far as to cut some scenes to fit his music. And the score itself, written for a solo bass, chorus, and orchestra, in dark, sombre and unabashedly Romantic in its expressive power, capturing both the calm of nature and the ferocity of technology run amok.



Glass's two subsequent collaboration with Reggio would prove less successful: Powaqqatsi (1987), a simplistic comparison of idealized third-world agrarian societies with dehumanized Western urban ones, accompanied by a score overburdened with exotic instruments of every variety; and Anima Mundi (1991), a short film about the diversity of animal life.

Koyaanisqatsi Trailer: