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First, warm birthday wishes must go out to the most fantastic cheerleader I've ever met: Happy Birthday, darkeyedwolf! :) I hope it's a wonderful day! ♥
My area definitely has its charms. One of them is that we get a lot of interesting film festivals, and for someone like me, this means an unending supply of thought-provoking fascination and entertainment in all sorts of genres, from all over the world. (finding time for them is the hardest part) Right now, the Silver Theater is hosting the New African Film Festival (3/7-17 - tomorrow is the last day!). Also in the area is the AMAZING DC Environmental Film Festival (3/11-22). Coming soon: the Korean Film Festival (4/4-6/12) and the Cherry Blossom Anime Marathon (4/14) and the always-wonderful DC International Film Festival (April 24-May 4). Our friend anahab, who is now working in France, has been threatening since last year to come back just for the DC Film Fest because it's that good.
Last night, we went to see one of the Environmental Film Fest-films, the second installment of the profound Qatsi trilogy directed by Godfrey Reggio. In 2006 I was fortunate enough to see the first film in the trilogy: Koyaanisqatsi, which I wrote about here. The second film was no less thought-provoking and it was also just as visually-spectacular as the first.
From here:"POWAQQATSI's overall focus is on natives of the Third World -- the emerging, land-based cultures of Asia, India, Africa, the Middle East and South America -- and how they express themselves through work and traditions. What it has to say about these cultures is an eyeful and then some, sculpted to allow for varied interpretations.
Where KOYAANISQATSI dealt with the imbalance between nature and modern society, POWAQQATSI is a celebration of the human-scale endeavor the craftsmanship, spiritual worship, labor and creativity that defines a particular culture. It's also a celebration of rareness -- the delicate beauty in the eyes of an Indian child, the richness of a tapestry woven in Kathmandu -- and yet an observation of how these societies move to a universal drumbeat.
POWAQQATSI is also about contrasting ways of life, and in part how the lure of mechanization and technology and the growth of mega-cities are having a negative effect on small-scale cultures.
The title POWAQQATSI is a Hopi Indian conjunctive -- the word Powaqa, I which refers to a negative sorcerer who lives at the expense of others, and Qatsi --i.e., life.
Several of "POWAQQATSI's" images point to a certain lethargy affecting its city dwellers. They could be the same faces we saw in the smaller villages but they seem numbed; their eyes reflect caution, uncertainty.
And yet POWAQQATSI, says Reggio, is not a film about what should or shouldn't be. "It's an impression, an examination of how life is changing", he explains. "That's all it is. There is good and there is bad. What we sought to capture is our unanimity as a global culture. Most of us tend to forget about this, caught up as we are in our separate trajectories. It was fascinating to blend these different existences together in one film."
To be certain, POWAQQATSI is a record of diversity and transformation, of cultures dying and prospering, of industry for its own sake and the fruits of individual labor, presented as an integrated human symphony -- and with Philip Glass' score providing the counterpart, performed with native, classical and electronic instruments, its tribal rhythms fused by a single majesterial theme."
I saw a bit of this film many years ago when my dear friend amgvln first introduced me to Philip Glass. Indeed, his score for Powaqatsi was the first example of his work that I'd ever heard. The music is powerful, life-affirming, celebratory, and incredibly dynamic. It's a good introduction, actually. The film and the soundtrack are tremendous - if you are open to it, I swear, they will turn you upside down, and I was thrilled when I looked over at N while the credits rolled: his eyes shone as he said, "This movie is amazing." From him, that's high praise.
This dialogue-less film consists mainly of slow-motion photography which lets you really SEE the expressions on the faces of the people, to have a sense of what life is like, not just in terms of labor, but also in terms of entertainment - there's a really lovely sequence that intercuts the dancing of various different cultures, and it's so colorful and gorgeous in how their bodies move, the costumes that are worn, their faces.
There were many segments that popped out. In the beginning, we see hundreds of people hauling dirt on a hillside, and somewhere within the mass of people, the camera lingers finally on two men carry another man's body, much the way that others were carry heavy sacks of dirt. There was something so beautiful and heartrending about that image. And then another, later, shows a wall of graffiti which reads "Viva La Guerra de Guerillas" - while a little girl in a pretty frock walks slowly across the screen, and then pauses to stare at the camera for an interminable moment. The juxtaposition of that beautiful small girl and those words was awful.
Perhaps the most disturbing moment for me was the footage of another little girl, who couldn't have been more than eight, driving a cart hauled by two oxen (I think). A man sat beside her, twisted around so he could lean on the box behind their seat, and he looked like he was asleep or unconscious. The girl held the reins with one hand, and a thick stick, sharpened at one end, in the other. She would lean down and fiercely beat the animal closest to her while tugging with the reins in her other hand. The image of this small child behaving so harshly - with an entirely un-childlike expression (she looked incredibly fierce, and like some character out of Waterworld), was just horrifying. I had to close my eyes when she beat the animal. It didn't seem right that a child should have to take such responsibility, to be old before her time.
The director, Godfrey Reggio, was available to answer questions afterward, and I was impressed at his passion and intellect. It became quite clear that he has very strong opinions on the state of the world, and that through this film, he was trying to articulate a significant idea: that we, of the developed world, are destroying everything about the undeveloped world through our addiction to progress and technology - that in order to make our lives possible, the rest of the world - its people, its wildlife, its environment - must suffer. It's an interesting idea, and I think that we can definitely see some evidence of this in how western industries are moving their operations away from western nations and setting up factories and plants in nations like China and India, and in South America, and that often this means that there are less controls on things like pollution and other environmental impacts, not to mention the management of human resources.
Something that struck me while I watched the film is that it was released in 1988, and twenty years later, the images are not dated at all (except for the bits and snatches of 1980s tv advertisements that are included as evidence of how the Western world encroaches on the civilizations of the developing nations) - the content of the film is even more relevant today than it was then. Reggio pointed out to us that they didn't direct any of the many lingering shots of people's faces - they, the camera crews, were alien to the peoples they were filming, and so the looks they captured were curious looks, which was entirely different from how they filmed Western people for Koyaanisqatsi (Western people were too conscious of the cameras and tended to "act" for it; the indigenous peoples photographed for Powaqatsi exhibited no self-consciousness at all). I think that Western culture has so spread, however, that I suspect that if Godfrey Reggio tried to produce this same footage today, the reactions would very different.
I really, really loved something Reggio said during his talk, because it resonates so deeply with my own personal philosophy. He said that he doesn't believe in joining large organizations, or marching in demonstrations, or any of those sorts of things. He doesn't believe that any of those things can change the world (which is arguable, of course - for example, the civil rights movement in the U.S. NEEDED people to join together in large numbers). He said he believes in changing the world through example. He said that our world is the network of our relationships, and the best way to effect change, is to live it and share it with your friends, in your attitudes and goals, how you behave, in the things that you do, in the smallest steps taken in the right directions.
I believe this, too. I think it's a good way to live, that jives with my conscience. I'm never going to do big and great things, but I can sure do as much good as I can in my own little corner of the world, and I know I won't have to do it alone.