Istaqsinaayok
March 8, 2015 3:10 PM Subscribe
If you run it backwards, will life go back in balance?
This strikes me as just as compelling as the original, and the music is almost as good, too.
Igor also does it forward, with bilateral symmetry, along with other projects.
Previously (Although the Google video is gone.)
This strikes me as just as compelling as the original, and the music is almost as good, too.
Igor also does it forward, with bilateral symmetry, along with other projects.
Previously (Although the Google video is gone.)
It's neat in places. I can't say it's just as compelling as the original. My problem though, is that it's hard to get people who have grown up on the internet as it has been the last few years, where 30 minutes might as well be 30 years, to sit and watch and comprehend something like this film.
posted by cashman at 3:31 PM on March 8, 2015 [6 favorites]
posted by cashman at 3:31 PM on March 8, 2015 [6 favorites]
The inverted explosions at about the 55:00 mark are pretty spectacular, entertaining. The traffic sequences at about 37:00 are a trip too, as the music is allllllllllllllllmost palindromic.
posted by Earthtopus at 3:31 PM on March 8, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by Earthtopus at 3:31 PM on March 8, 2015 [1 favorite]
Can't unsmoke those joints, though.
posted by chavenet at 3:31 PM on March 8, 2015 [5 favorites]
posted by chavenet at 3:31 PM on March 8, 2015 [5 favorites]
ʇɥɐuʞs ɟoɹ dosʇıuƃ ʇɥıs
posted by not_on_display at 3:50 PM on March 8, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by not_on_display at 3:50 PM on March 8, 2015 [2 favorites]
you missed out on one way to reverse it ... the order of words.
posted by TheLittlePrince at 4:01 PM on March 8, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by TheLittlePrince at 4:01 PM on March 8, 2015 [1 favorite]
The film is certainly more hopeful when it is played in reverse.
But that is missing in every possible way, shape, and form, the message and meaning of the original film.
posted by jammy at 4:01 PM on March 8, 2015
But that is missing in every possible way, shape, and form, the message and meaning of the original film.
posted by jammy at 4:01 PM on March 8, 2015
What will you do with all the rockets that keep showing up at your launchpad full of fuel, you can't just leave them there!
posted by boilermonster at 4:20 PM on March 8, 2015 [3 favorites]
posted by boilermonster at 4:20 PM on March 8, 2015 [3 favorites]
I won't lie, I had occasionally wondered what it would be like played backwards. Now the mystery is gone.
posted by ardgedee at 5:07 PM on March 8, 2015
posted by ardgedee at 5:07 PM on March 8, 2015
It's a movie I really liked (and have been meaning to rewatch in the not distant future). I watched some pieces of the reverse version; some seemed about the same and some seemed not so great. This is the answer to a question I had never been stoned enough to ask, I think.
posted by Dip Flash at 6:41 PM on March 8, 2015
posted by Dip Flash at 6:41 PM on March 8, 2015
I prefer Powaqqatsi.
But I haven't tried Istsqqawop yet...wonder if it's doo-wop?
posted by CrowGoat at 6:43 PM on March 8, 2015
But I haven't tried Istsqqawop yet...wonder if it's doo-wop?
posted by CrowGoat at 6:43 PM on March 8, 2015
Got to see Koyaanisqatsi in a big theater with Glass performing the soundtrack live on stage about fifteen years ago which was an amazing experience. It's definitely a film to see on a big screen.
posted by octothorpe at 6:55 PM on March 8, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by octothorpe at 6:55 PM on March 8, 2015 [1 favorite]
I was on a moving crew in Santa Fe for a while and we did one job moving Godfrey Reggio's friend's art made of surplus stuff from the Los Alamos Lab. Mr. Reggio was a total douche to us and treated us like something stinky he stepped in. Good movies, though.
posted by Makwa at 7:02 PM on March 8, 2015
posted by Makwa at 7:02 PM on March 8, 2015
Now watch this while playing Pink Floyd's "Echoes" on repeat...
..and you have my freshman year in college.
posted by not_on_display at 7:10 PM on March 8, 2015
..and you have my freshman year in college.
posted by not_on_display at 7:10 PM on March 8, 2015
"It was a movie about American bombers in World War II and the gallant men who flew them. Seen backwards by Billy, the story went like this: American planes, full of holes and wounded men and corpses took off backwards from an airfield in England. Over France, a few German fighter planes flew at them backwards, sucked bullets and shell fragments from some of the planes and crewmen. They did the same for wrecked American bombers on the ground, and those planes flew up backwards to join the formation.
"The formation flew backwards over a German city that was in flames. The bombers opened their bomb bay doors, exerted a miraculous magnetism which shrunk the fires, gathered them into cylindrical steel containers , and lifted the containers into the bellies of the planes. The containers were stored neatly in racks. The Germans below had miraculous devices of their own, which were long steel tubes. They used them to suck more fragments from the crewmen and planes. But there were still a few wounded Americans though and some of the bombers were in bad repair. Over France though, German fighters came up again, made everything and everybody as good as new.
"When the bombers got back to their base, the steel cylinders were taken from the racks and shipped back to the United States of America, where factories were operating night and day, dismantling the cylinders, separating the dangerous contents into minerals. Touchingly, it was mainly women who did this work. The minerals were then shipped to specialists in remote areas. It was their business to put them into the ground, to hide them cleverly, so they would never hurt anybody ever again. The American fliers turned in their uniforms, became high school kids. And Hitler turned into a baby."
— Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 4:37 AM on March 9, 2015 [6 favorites]
"The formation flew backwards over a German city that was in flames. The bombers opened their bomb bay doors, exerted a miraculous magnetism which shrunk the fires, gathered them into cylindrical steel containers , and lifted the containers into the bellies of the planes. The containers were stored neatly in racks. The Germans below had miraculous devices of their own, which were long steel tubes. They used them to suck more fragments from the crewmen and planes. But there were still a few wounded Americans though and some of the bombers were in bad repair. Over France though, German fighters came up again, made everything and everybody as good as new.
"When the bombers got back to their base, the steel cylinders were taken from the racks and shipped back to the United States of America, where factories were operating night and day, dismantling the cylinders, separating the dangerous contents into minerals. Touchingly, it was mainly women who did this work. The minerals were then shipped to specialists in remote areas. It was their business to put them into the ground, to hide them cleverly, so they would never hurt anybody ever again. The American fliers turned in their uniforms, became high school kids. And Hitler turned into a baby."
— Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 4:37 AM on March 9, 2015 [6 favorites]
When I was a little kid I went to Cape Canaveral on a school field trip, and at some point they stuck us all in a theater and played part of a movie for us. This was the '80s or early '90s; environmentalism seemed to have been a big thing in children's education.
All I could remember from this movie for years were two scenes: one of people trudging up a mountain of mud, like ants, carrying something; and one of people walking by the side of a road, being swallowed up by dust clouds as trucks passed. In my memory these images are all mixed up with my happiness in a little plastic Space Shuttle toy I bought on that trip (it had a Canadarm and removable satellite!).
In the years before sophisticated Internet, I assumed I would never find the movie again. I mean, how would you even search for such a thing? And at the time I wasn't even sure it was a movie—all I knew were images in my head. Then I bought the trilogy on DVD on an impulse and put it on while I cleaned my apartment. And I was thrown vertiginously back into my past. It was a Proust's-madeleine moment for me. I felt my Shuttle toy in my hands; I remembered my mom's friend's dog eating it while we were there visiting, hiding the gnawed white plastic bits under her bed in her weird-smelling house. I realized that I had seen Koyaanisqatsi at some point too, mixing it up with the how-it's-made segments they used to show on Mr. Rogers. Gears began to mesh in my mind that I didn't know were there.
The -qatsi movies still feel like somebody recorded my childhood dreams & nightmares and they're being played back to me now, impossible, holographic. They're uncomfortable in exactly the way I expect they were intended to be.
posted by penduluum at 9:27 AM on March 9, 2015 [4 favorites]
All I could remember from this movie for years were two scenes: one of people trudging up a mountain of mud, like ants, carrying something; and one of people walking by the side of a road, being swallowed up by dust clouds as trucks passed. In my memory these images are all mixed up with my happiness in a little plastic Space Shuttle toy I bought on that trip (it had a Canadarm and removable satellite!).
In the years before sophisticated Internet, I assumed I would never find the movie again. I mean, how would you even search for such a thing? And at the time I wasn't even sure it was a movie—all I knew were images in my head. Then I bought the trilogy on DVD on an impulse and put it on while I cleaned my apartment. And I was thrown vertiginously back into my past. It was a Proust's-madeleine moment for me. I felt my Shuttle toy in my hands; I remembered my mom's friend's dog eating it while we were there visiting, hiding the gnawed white plastic bits under her bed in her weird-smelling house. I realized that I had seen Koyaanisqatsi at some point too, mixing it up with the how-it's-made segments they used to show on Mr. Rogers. Gears began to mesh in my mind that I didn't know were there.
The -qatsi movies still feel like somebody recorded my childhood dreams & nightmares and they're being played back to me now, impossible, holographic. They're uncomfortable in exactly the way I expect they were intended to be.
posted by penduluum at 9:27 AM on March 9, 2015 [4 favorites]
Got to see Koyaanisqatsi in a big theater with Glass performing the soundtrack live on stage about fifteen years ago which was an amazing experience. It's definitely a film to see on a big screen.
I saw a similar performance (the same one, if you were in Houston). I also recently watched Visitors, the Reggio/Glass collaboration from a couple of years ago, on my TV, and I think that was a mistake. I'm interested in seeing this reverse version, but I want that immersive big-screen feel.
posted by immlass at 4:00 PM on March 9, 2015
I saw a similar performance (the same one, if you were in Houston). I also recently watched Visitors, the Reggio/Glass collaboration from a couple of years ago, on my TV, and I think that was a mistake. I'm interested in seeing this reverse version, but I want that immersive big-screen feel.
posted by immlass at 4:00 PM on March 9, 2015
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