baraka

[Guest bitroast]

man, i swore you dudes said the second qatsi film was good. the visuals were nice enough. it was like a series of good moving photographs. but it had none of the impact that koyanisqatsi had. and the mad over top themes of nature and modern technology and shit from koyanisqatsi (over the top because its so blatent with heaps of contrasting imagery) was heaps toned down and.. not as interesting? when applied to a foreign country peeps.

i dunno, maybe i just wasnt into it because i watched after koyanisqatsi, but i pretty much hated powaqqatsi :r

 

 

Powa doesn't have the same meaning, of course, it's not the same movie. It's about men and their transformation of earth in a more primitive way. Notice how it's almost all in third or second-world countries, unlike Koya which is almost all the modern and technological world.

 

 

Let's try to forget Naqoyqatsi (except for the music, of course)

 

yeah, i guess compairing them isnt totally fair. but i still find found it really boring :(

koyaanisqatsi is still good. and was real good watching it properly on the big screen :)

[playbynumbers]

Anyway, I must defend at least Koyaanisqatsi, in that the esthetics of that movie is more important nowadays than the movie itself, the same way that "The Jazz Singer" is important to cinema. This was experimental movie-making back then, and we must appreciate that.

 

 

 

dude, there had been plenty of experimental dialogue-free film before 1982. and plenty of nature docs and sped-up photography

[playbynumbers]

I have to agree with PBN about all the Qatsi stuff. If I was somehow capable of tuning out the pedantic (and yes, trite) philosophy these films peddle, I might just jerk off to them as screensavers. Unfortunately, I rub elbows with a bunch of Science & Natural History MFA knobheads who think of Fricke et al. as "experimental" filmmakers while in reality, they just make blue-chip Discovery Channel films without the Grierson voice of god. The Edit of God is no less condescending IMO. As PBN pointed out, some of the edits in these films are truly nauseating.

 

 

 

 

 

I thought The Fall was almost unwatchable. Come on, PBN, you gave Let the Right One In a lot of shit for its pretentiousness and The Fall gets a pass from you because it has nice photography and locations? It was fucking terrible! :teeth:

 

a fair question. one factor would be the story in 'the fall'; despite being not very well written or acted, the characters were compelling, the story made sense and had a good narrative arc, etc., which made it easier to appreciate other aspects of the film. (and the little girl was a very good actress, actually.)

 

'the fall' was pretentious in a totally forgiveable, over-the-top way; i wish that all films would AIM to create the most mind-blowingly beautiful mythical archetypal film ever, even if they fail. say what you will about tarsem, but he put a lot of EFFORT into that movie, and the visuals were (to me) worth the effort.

[J3FF3R00]

Let's try to forget Naqoyqatsi (except for the music, of course)

 

I'm actually in that movie, briefly.

 

There is a close up of my head in slow motion at 1:34 seconds of this video.

 

 

The story behind it is my girlfriend at the time was working as an intern for Godfrey Reggio's production company downloading songs and sounds off the internet to give to Phillip Glass to inspire him to compose the score. I would stop by the office to visit her every now and then to say hi. I ended up meeting Godfrey. He was a really nice, flaky kinda dude. Every time I saw him, he would say "I want you to come to the feast. You must come to the feast! You have to come." I was always like "OK. Sure." But I had no idea what the fuck he was talking about.

One day my girlfriend called and said the feast was coming up and Godfrey wanted us both to go. We went and it was at this office or apartment somewhere in Manhattan. There was this 2 hour open bar filled with a bunch of strangers that Godfrey hand-picked to film. After everyone was well drunk, we were escorted into this room that was shrouded in black duvetene, where we sat around a long dinning-table that was illuminated from within. We were then served a crazy 30 course meal from Nobu with a different wine for every course. The cameras were semi-hidden from us behind the blac fabric and they filmed us as we ate and talked.

Philip Glass was there and I actually took a piss at the urinal next to him in the bathroom. Everyone was fucking wasted. The 2 people at 2:42 met there and had sex in the bathroom.

My guess is that Godfrey's point was to get a bunch of strangers he found interesting looking wasted, feed them the best food posible and film them in a state of ecstacy.

I wasn't enjoying myself thouroughly because I was thinking about leaving my girlfriend. I think I broke up with her a day or two after.

 

Personally, I think that movie is a bit of a fap job.

[encey]

whoa

[Bob Dylan]

I try to forget Naqoy but it is all about humans vs humans.

 

Cool story dude, I always been fascinated by this almost x-ray type of scenes in that film

[J3FF3R00]

I try to forget Naqoy but it is all about humans vs humans.

 

 

Yeah, it's nowhere near as good as the first 2, particularly the first.

Lots of points just look like they were trying to push the limits of digital video effects in a sort of stonerish, dorm-room sort of way. The message gets lost is the mess it makes.

[awepittance]

the characters were compelling, the story made sense and had a good narrative arc, etc., which made it easier to appreciate other aspects of the film. (and the little girl was a very good actress, actually.)

 

'the fall' was pretentious in a totally forgiveable, over-the-top way; i wish that all films would AIM to create the most mind-blowingly beautiful mythical archetypal film ever, even if they fail. say what you will about tarsem, but he put a lot of EFFORT into that movie, and the visuals were (to me) worth the effort.

 

the characters were NOT compelling at all imo, i lost interest in anything relating to the story about 15 minutes in.

i respect Tarsem for his effort, but strong effort can only take one so far. in the end it was a generic looking, boring and badly acted and scripted film. Again shame on you Fincher and Jonez for putting your name all over this atrocity.

 

condescending IMO. As PBN pointed out, some of the edits in these films are truly nauseating.

 

 

if you have gotten to the point where you are such a film faggot that edits in movies offend your intelligence because they are 'condescending' you need to take a break from movies for a while

[playbynumbers]

if you have gotten to the point where you are such a film faggot that edits in movies offend your intelligence because they are 'condescending' you need to take a break from movies for a while

 

 

 

dude, my 11-year-old cousin would be offended by the obvious heavy-handed editing; this isn't some obscure film student thing

[playbynumbers]

god, just thinking about the qatsi films gets me all annoyed again ... i mean, wait, really? modernity and the mechanization of culture cuts mankind off from his natural roots? this was big news, you know, BACK IN THE 1750s, when the romantics first pointed it out. but i guess we had to wait for some new age bullshit artist to learn the hopi language and make a really pretentious series of films about it

[Guest tidbit]

just biked in to mention.. that i watched samsara, and i didnt like it.

 

Dude we told you, Samsara is NOT OUT YET. You watched another movie with the same name.

 

 

shitfuckbollock..

 

anyway, no wonder.. that was a complete waste of time then

[awepittance]

 

 

tell your 11 year old cousin to stop being so pretentious

[Bob Dylan]

Oh yeah just wanted to say that ORANGEMOUNTAINMUSIC' next release is the complete original soundtrack to Koyaanisqatsi. The original CD was limited to the lenght of a vinyl, and the redone version back in 1999 was great, but nothing against the original. Plus, the new complete soundtrack has even more music that wasn't in the 1999 remake.

 

OMM is really a dream come true for PG fans, they release at least 10 discs per year of content that fans have been waiting for decades. I can only hope we get stuff like Symphony #7 (A Toltec Symphony) or APPOMATOX this year.

 

 

Fuck yeah!

[awepittance]

Oh yeah just wanted to say that ORANGEMOUNTAINMUSIC' next release is the complete original soundtrack to Koyaanisqatsi. The original CD was limited to the lenght of a vinyl, and the redone version back in 1999 was great, but nothing against the original. Plus, the new complete soundtrack has even more music that wasn't in the 1999 remake.

 

OMM is really a dream come true for PG fans, they release at least 10 discs per year of content that fans have been waiting for decades. I can only hope we get stuff like Symphony #7 (A Toltec Symphony) or APPOMATOX this year.

 

 

Fuck yeah!

 

i don't remember ever asking you this before so forgive me if i have but has Candyman OST had a proper non bootleg release that is still in print?

[Bob Dylan]

Oh yeah it's been released as a re-recording, OMM0051, and it includes stuff from the second movie!

 

http://www.philipglass.com/music/recording...an_music_of.php

 

 

You can sample it on itunes or amazon. I love how that score is so PG, yet so unlike PG. But keep the bootleg!

[Guest zaphod]

god, just thinking about the qatsi films gets me all annoyed again ... i mean, wait, really? modernity and the mechanization of culture cuts mankind off from his natural roots? this was big news, you know, BACK IN THE 1750s, when the romantics first pointed it out. but i guess we had to wait for some new age bullshit artist to learn the hopi language and make a really pretentious series of films about it

 

sorry but this is such a bullshit reason to not like something. so what, we can't repeat one of, oh, the maybe three basic themes that exist to explore within all art because someone has already explored it within a philosophical text or novel? so it can't be explored on film? what? you know better than that. the films annoyed you because you find them pretentious, ok. but saying that they shouldn't exist because someone, in the 1750s, before film was invented, pointed out all of this, is just retarded.

 

also this thread was not about how baraka is the best film ever, or something. i was mainly pointing out that the technical quality, of the blu ray specifically, is the best i've ever seen for a video release. but the film itself is amazing, despite its flaws.

[playbynumbers]

yeah, having a weird day yesterday.

 

baraka had enough moments of 'amazing' that ultimately i forgive its flaws, which i think i said before

[Alcofribas]

i think i really struggle to appreciate these "philosophical" criticisms of the qatsi films -- that they are philosophically trite and outdated and shit. i think zaphod did a fine job pointing out some of the limitations of this argument, but i just want to emphasize that we're talking about moving images and music, not philosophy. perhaps it's this simplistic reduction of the films to this nature-corrupted-technology "philosophy" that is trite. i have watched koya many times and i have never once been like, "oh, cool philosophy about how technology alienates man from himself" or whatever; i've simply found them very beautiful visual/musical experiences, admittedly based on a theme of "life out of balance," "civilized violence" or whatever, but you can take many masterworks of film or literature and reduce them to trite philosophical principles. if perhaps they were lectures on this theme i would probably find them idiotic, trite, etc. (in fact, i do find a lot of reggio's ideas rather trite) but, fortunately, they are films and not philosophical texts or something. in my eyes, saying they are "heavy handed" and "repetitive" is simply pointing out something quite obvious and intentional about them and does not amount to much in the way of criticism. it's like saying glass' music is "repetitive" -- this is not a criticism, it's an observation. at the same time, i can perfectly understand how some one might find this repetition annoying or shitty or something.

 

and i have often heard this criticism of koya that there were other experimental films before it that used sped up images or something -- but the proof is in the pudding, what films are we talking about? i am sincerely interested in seeing other films that are feasts of moving images coupled with an original, perhaps even genius score by one of the most important composers of modern music. seriously, what are we talking about here?

 

i can perfectly understand being annoyed with the limitations of this "life out of balance" philosophy, but it's not philosophy. furthermore, it is trite b/c it's kind of a philosophical truism; i think a good heideggerian could really amplify a lot of the themes in this film for example. what i mean is, yes it's simplistic, but it's not false. thus, it is a perfectly acceptable thematic foundation for an experimental film. as for it being some unoriginal new age crap, well, i remain unconvinced that in the late 70s/early 80s this kind of film on this kind of scale was somehow commonplace.

 

AND FUCK -- the fall was one of the most symbolically trite, unoriginal pieces of shit i've seen in a long long time. i'm getting really sick of these pseudo fairly tale films; if there's anything "new age" in contemporary film it's just this kind of garbage: this picking and choosing of various symbolic motifs, this "classic" story ensconced in this new age appropriation of symbolism...ugh, so trashy.

 

p.s. i fucking LOVE terrence malick, pbn, so it's not all bashing lol. he's one of my favorite film makers.

 

p.p.s. i fucking LOVE philip glass so maybe i'm just totally biased on this one...he's definitely one of my favorite music makers.

[awepittance]

and i have often heard this criticism of koya that there were other experimental films before it that used sped up images or something -- but the proof is in the pudding, what films are we talking about? i am sincerely interested in seeing other films that are feasts of moving images coupled with an original, perhaps even genius score by one of the most important composers of modern music. seriously, what are we talking about here?

 

also i will point out that a lot of the music we listen to on this forum in a technical sense it can be argued that its not 'original' like Autechre because people like Morton Subotnick were making Confield esque music in 1965, but really how does that decrease the enjoyment or creativity of autechre? it doesnt

 

AND FUCK -- the fall was one of the most symbolically trite, unoriginal pieces of shit i've seen in a long long time. i'm getting really sick of these pseudo fairly tale films; if there's anything "new age" in contemporary film it's just this kind of garbage: this picking and choosing of various symbolic motifs, this "classic" story ensconced in this new age appropriation of symbolism...ugh, so trashy.

 

Playbynumbers, i don't understand your ability to look past the bad acting, script and story in 'The Fall' and appreciate its 'beautiful visuals' when you seem to be extremely hung up on the non spoken (except for in a single quote at the end or maybe the beginning of the fim) political philosophy of Baraka and Qatsi

 

i was mainly pointing out that the technical quality, of the blu ray specifically, is the best i've ever seen for a video release.

 

this fact has not been disputed by anyone because it needs to be seen to be believed. Roger Eberts statements seemed like total hyperbole to me until i actually loaded up the blue-ray on my HD. If people here who havent seen Baraka are trying to take it in with the Youtube stream i think you're severely short changing the experience

[Alcofribas]

and i have often heard this criticism of koya that there were other experimental films before it that used sped up images or something -- but the proof is in the pudding, what films are we talking about? i am sincerely interested in seeing other films that are feasts of moving images coupled with an original, perhaps even genius score by one of the most important composers of modern music. seriously, what are we talking about here?

 

also i will point out that a lot of the music we listen to on this forum in a technical sense it can be argued that its not 'original' like Autechre because people like Morton Subotnick were making Confield esque music in 1965, but really how does that decrease the enjoyment or creativity of autechre? it doesnt

 

AND FUCK -- the fall was one of the most symbolically trite, unoriginal pieces of shit i've seen in a long long time. i'm getting really sick of these pseudo fairly tale films; if there's anything "new age" in contemporary film it's just this kind of garbage: this picking and choosing of various symbolic motifs, this "classic" story ensconced in this new age appropriation of symbolism...ugh, so trashy.

 

Playbynumbers, i don't understand your ability to look past the bad acting, script and story in 'The Fall' and appreciate its 'beautiful visuals' when you seem to be extremely hung up on the non spoken (except for in a single quote at the end or maybe the beginning of the fim) political philosophy of Baraka and Qatsi

 

i was mainly pointing out that the technical quality, of the blu ray specifically, is the best i've ever seen for a video release.

 

this fact has not been disputed by anyone because it needs to be seen to be believed. Roger Eberts statements seemed like total hyperbole to me until i actually loaded up the blue-ray on my HD. If people here who havent seen Baraka are trying to take it in with the Youtube stream i think you're severely short changing the experience

 

 

very good points.

 

re: teh fall, i'd also like to mention how contrived the imagery was. i think some one already pointed out that several scenes were like pop rip-offs of the subjects filmed in baraka. i cannot emphasize enough how pathetic i find these kinds of movies, this picking and choosing from various symbolic motifs, like, 'oh, let's have them meet up with some whirling dervishes, and then, like, later they'll meet some indonesians and shit, etc.' it reminds me so much of all that is bad about new age music, like how they'll have some digeridoo bits, some 'african' rhythms, a bit of synth, etc. i find it so odd that pbn calls koya new age when the fall is like such a par excellence example of new age drivel.

 

but, seriously, pbn -- you're da bomb. we disagree on this one but you're still my hero.

[awepittance]

HOLY LOL i just realized the Baraka scene in the Fall!!! i honestly thought this was a dream i had until it just clicked right now jesus christ what the hell!

 

but, seriously, pbn -- you're da bomb. we disagree on this one but you're still my hero.

[playbynumbers]

i can perfectly understand being annoyed with the limitations of this "life out of balance" philosophy, but it's not philosophy.

 

actually a big part of this was just my annoyance with philosophers saying things very well, and then asshats saying it centuries later. (see also: nietzsche vs. the current 'atheists'). it didn't totally relate to the qatsi films, which are, i guess, alright.

 

and i have absolutely no problem with repetition; just off the top of my head, most of the scenes in 'gerry' were absolutely mesmerizing despite being "boring" or repetitive. but i guess that's my point with the qatsi films; repetitive and not terribly interesting. they might have worked better as short films, i dunno

 

 

 

 

 

AND FUCK -- the fall was one of the most symbolically trite, unoriginal pieces of shit i've seen in a long long time. i'm getting really sick of these pseudo fairly tale films; if there's anything "new age" in contemporary film it's just this kind of garbage: this picking and choosing of various symbolic motifs, this "classic" story ensconced in this new age appropriation of symbolism...ugh, so trashy.

 

for sure, i was pretty annoyed with it by the end. i'm very much against new age-y bullshit; and i remember, right after seeing it, i thought 'well that was kind of a waste of time.'

 

but then, i thought about it later, and the cinematographer and location scout should be given lavish prizes, is my point.

 

 

 

 

 

Playbynumbers, i don't understand your ability to look past the bad acting, script and story in 'The Fall' and appreciate its 'beautiful visuals' when you seem to be extremely hung up on the non spoken (except for in a single quote at the end or maybe the beginning of the fim) political philosophy of Baraka and Qatsi

 

you know, i'm sort of surprised at this myself. maybe because the cinematography and formal aspects of the qatsi films were mostly unimpressive to me. also it's probably worth noting, my ideal film would be what i've always referred to as "third unit photography"; background and aerial and tracking shots of various things; frankly i'm not a huge fan of dialogue. so i'm not looking for the usual filmic things, though i love a good story as much as anyone.

 

 

 

 

 

but, seriously, pbn -- you're da bomb. we disagree on this one but you're still my hero.

 

:stuart:

[Guest philia]

well i just watched baraka for the first time. the image quality of the blu-ray was outstanding. as for the film, i liked it a lot, although to be honest, i felt the occasional vacant stares towards the camera to be a bit off. those were the only parts that didn't feel natural to me,... seemed more like markers to incite some sort of emotional response. i guess i was just expecting this film to be more objective. would have liked to have seen more of kowloon walledcity too! the shots near the beginning were absolutely stunning.

 

[encey]

What Terrence Malick film is a good one to watch first?

[playbynumbers]

What Terrence Malick film is a good one to watch first?

 

 

 

honestly i'd say his latest (and best) one, 'the new world.' 'days of heaven' isn't very representative, 'the thin red line' is great but very long and meandering, and 'badlands' is incredible but like 40 years old, so if you aren't already into the stylistic/acting conventions of older films it may not be worthwhile