Uhm... no plot here guys, more of a meditation on the northern hemisphere, from the sheer beauty of its geography to the remarkable lights and structures of the cities and its people.

It uses (for its time) innovative speeded up and slowed down filming techniques in New York and other cities. (Time lapse?)

The movie draws a parallel from the large to the small (micro chips look the same as power stations from the air - shock!). Some majestic sweeping views of stunning geographic structures too, all against evocative music which is virtually un-hummable.

"I love to meditate to this magnificent fruit filled muffin of a movie. A sheer inspiration in all of its effervescent egalitarian inconsequentialness. Bravo in alto and tenor both at the same time."

"A joy to experience this movie in any digital format."

"To say that one watched this movie is insufficient - this movie grabs your soul and stuffs it into the liquidizer of all our realities, leaving one's soul completely mushed. A smoothie for the soul! Triumphalisimo!"

"I have seen this movie in many viewings, with both professors and teenage children, and, whilst the teenagers did get restless at times, I am sure exposure to this movie has made all of the difference to their upcoming arraignment."

Large Koyaanisqatsi lettering with definition of what it means (Life out of balance).

When this movie came out, my only objection to watching it in a cinema was the probability that I would have had the smallest mustache out of everyone watching it; the audience, too, would undoubtedly have enjoyed corduroy and would have put patches on their jacket elbows. For this movie attracts those of us who fancy ourselves as being intelligent.

Thankfully, today we can appreciate this utter masterpiece without the fear of too much facial hair, on DVD. The movie is very stylish and the techniques used have been much copied.

Perhaps, it is fair to offer, that this movie has been slightly surpassed, today, by the stunning natural history photography available and the preponderance of the superb BBC natural history documentaries and the Discovery Channel (and their ilk). But this movie was still one of the first of its type.

Tips of the hat and salutations all round.

Remarkable, thought provoking, has that wow factor.

March 15, 2003