Powaqqatsi (1988)

Documentary. While I was excited to see the first two parts of the trilogy and I give them 5 stars, this one gets only 3 stars. An aurally thrumming and visually pulsing kaleidoscope of studied and stock video images, this third helping of the Qatsi trilogy borders on tired cliche, especially when the images of nuclear bomb explosions begin painting the screen. (If technology is bad, then pray what is the alternative? The problem is the human choice to do evil, not the tool -- pen or sword -- by which one chooses to wreak evil.) Koyaanisqatsi (1983) and Powaqqatsi (1988) proved to be innovative marriages of artistically directed cinematography and the neo-cum-classical compositions of Phillip Glass, but 19 years later Naqoyqatsi (2002) feels like a pastiche and an also-ran. My 9-year-old son watched it with me and generally found it interesting as I offered possible interpretations of this section and that -- nevertheless it began to feel like a film project that an arts high school student put together, esp. after a series of bald juxtapositions of images began banging the propaganda pan just a bit too stridently for comfort and I grimaced frequently at the unsubtlety of it all. 3 stars.