We Live In A Political World: #284 / Out Of Balance

John Malkin reviewed Koyaanisqatsi: Life Out of Balance in the September 28, 2017, edition of the Santa Cruz Sentinel. Malkin's review called the film both haunting and prophetic, and said that it now "makes more sense than ever."

I saw Koyaanisqatsi when it first came out, in 1983, and Malkin's review made me want to refresh my recollection. The film is composed of images by Godfrey Reggio, with music by Philip Glass - and nothing more. The video below is a powerful excerpt, the ending scene. Watch it to remember, or to get a taste of how Koyaanisqatsi presents itself, if you are not familiar with the film.

I recommend both Malkin's review, and the film itself, which is available not only individually, but as part of a DVD boxed set, with extras, called the Qatsi Trilogy. The image at the top of this blog posting is from the cover of the Trilogy, which includes the following films:

Koyaanisqatsi: Life Out of Balance (1982)

Powaqqatsi: Life in Transformation (1988)

Naqoyqatsi: Life as War (2002)

Prophecies are not "predictions." They state no inevitabilities. They are provided as a warning. Sometimes we find (and perhaps all too often we find), that when prophecies are ignored, the future comes upon us as we have been advised it might. Prophecy becomes prediction. A failure to heed the words of the prophets is a prediction of our doom.

So it is recorded in the Bible. And so we find it true today. Thirty-five years after Koyaanisqatsi, and fifteen years after Naqoyqatsi, don't we, in fact, find ourselves caught up in "Life as War?"

Perhaps (and we are advised to believe this, and to act accordingly), there is still time to avert the full and final advent of the prophecy found at the very end of Koyaanisqatsi. The Byrds, too, have provided a prophecy in music. There is: