What makes it different from others?

Please don't spend money on this.

It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

There is just so much movie here. For some it may be too much. But in the same secretly sarcastic way most telemarketers say the phrase, the title of this one is particularly apt.

"Powaqqatsi" is the second picture in filmmaker Godfrey Reggios' "...Qatsi" trilogy, a series of features that basically meld visuals and music without resorting to a conventional narrative. This one has a message, clearly stated throughout, about the "cost of progress". Its first half shows us different rural cultures all over the world (from Nepal to India to Kenya, etc.), and derives a great deal of impact from giving us a portrait of good, old-fashioned, honest hard work, as well as displaying a cornucopia of beautiful images. The heartfelt music score is once again the work of Philip Glass, and it supplements the images wonderfully, although it can be repetitive.Where the picture becomes a little less interesting is in the next 25 minutes or so, when we're confronted with the sights and sounds of the urban jungle in which many of us exist. Among the visuals utilized during this portion are those things that we all experience everyday: advertising, newscasts, and the like. But it all comes together in the final quarter, where we see that progress does come at its price; that it can lead to loss of identity, and be built on the backs of others.All done without the use of a narrator, this is documentary-style filmmaking of a different variety. It does force one to stop and think about the world we live in, and about all the things that many of us take for granted.This viewer went in blind to this picture without having seen "Koyaanisqatsi", the previous film in this trilogy. And one doesn't have to have done so. The material has a compelling nature regardless.The title is a Hopi word, explained at the conclusion (before the end credits). It means a life form that consumes other life forms in order to extend its own existence. That pretty much sums up the whole theme of the film right there.One of the most highbrow projects that the legendary Golan-Globus team (of Cannon Group fame) ever made.Seven out of 10.

Well, when it came to Powaqqatsi's camera-work, I certainly had nothing to really complain about in regards to that. Overall, it was quite excellent and impressive to behold.But, with that said, I honestly have to admit that viewing recurring images of 3rd World poverty and population overload (set at a gruellingly slow pace) did, indeed, become quite tiresome to sit through, in the long run.In fact, I ended up watching most of Powaqqatsi in fast-forward mode - 'Cause I knew that I just couldn't have endured viewing it, from start to finish, at its full 99-minute running time. No way.Powaqqatsi was directed by Godfrey Reggio. Its budget was $2.5 million.

Great film if you just want to let loose your mind and abandon all other thoughts. As expected, the wealth of the images to a wonderful score is nothing less than fantastic, this time closer to people's faces while they're working their asses off, struggling with dirt, dust and garbage or just staring right into the camera, often a little uncertain, sometimes with proudness, but never with pride and always quite affecting. Alle these worn out, contemplative Third World faces we see in close-up or in half distance show the mortality and vigour, the pettiness and dignity of mankind at the same time - that's the underlying beauty of this overwhelmingly ugly world. There's one particular image that I've kept till today: in a reoccurring scene taking place somewhere in the Middle East, Reggio focuses his lenses at a little girl in tears and dust clouds steering a racing horse cart over a bumpy road always in danger to fall over while, which seems to be, her father lies next to her on the box, unable to move and seemingly wasted. She is obviously in pain and desperation and yet masterfully manages her difficult situation (to drive her drunken father home?), probably not for the first time. Quite powerful.

Get out of all the everyday's confusion, run away from the troubles you have and for one moment just think about what life's is all about, why we are here on this planet with this life. Make some reflections of why we end up destroying our world while trying to make better things for ourselves. And most important: realize that this parasitic way of life (consumations, explorations, degradations, etc.) that reaches a life's transition from some point to another distant point is the same thing that make us live and evolve and it can also make us die. Stop everything and watch Godfrey Reggio's second installment of his Qatsi trilogy "Powaqqatsi". This is art and philosophy at its best, together!I'm a little suspect to talk about these powerful and beautiful documentaries since I'm a big fan of all of them and my perception on each film is a mix of things that in the end leaves me speechless. Reggio's take on this film goes almost the same way the other two "Koyaanisqatsi" (1983) and "Naqoyqatsi" (2001): countless images taken from around the world (10 countries including Brazil, Egypt, Hong Kong, Peru and others), images that take us back to the wild, forests, deserts, reminding us of how the world was at one day, later making a contrast with our modern world of cities, computers, technologies, cars, the polluted and almost destroyed world; the endless and inadequate balance between war and peace, joy and sadness, power and weakness; beautiful and fantastic panoramic shots of places followed by the great music by Philip Glass. "Powaqqatsi" (which means "Parasitic way of life" or "life in transformation" in the Hopi language) reflects about how the third world countries were affected by the evolution of better developed countries in terms of production, exportation, technology, the impact on culture and other things. The first image of the film is powerful and very memorable: an enormous line of suffering miners in Serra Pelada, one of the biggest gold mines to appear in Brazil in the 1980's, and you see the miners long walking in it, you see them by the thousands. From this point, just follow the images, the sounds, the way people look at the camera, reflecting on something we don't know and think about how small we are in this vast world that seems so far away but at the same time it might be so close to us all.I enjoyed it a lot this film although a little bit less than the others since the way the theme was explored until finally reach its conclusion, explaining what the title means, was distractive at parts, sometimes the images just went way too far for a purpose in which I couldn't find any. The music was good but Glass placed his more common materials in soundtracks like the violins and keyboards on the side, turning his preference to horns, trumpets, percussions and more noisy instruments and in the end it wasn't a much memorable soundtrack. But these are minor complaints of a outstanding work and must not be taken so seriously.If you like meditation through films, stunning images that can make you smile, cry, think, feel, make your heart beat, things that can hypnotize you in a great way, a stir of the senses in just one media "Powaqqatsi" is perfect for you. Don't even blink for a second! 10/10