With a pulsing Philip Glass soundtrack graced by the beautiful cello music of Yo-Yo Ma, Godfrey Reggio's NAQOYQATSI is the final installment of his Qatsi trilogy, which also includes KOYAANISQATSI and POWAQQATSI. In this film, computer-enhanced imagery rolls across the screen to the tune of the Glass concert music. NAQOYQATSI makes a departure from the previous films, which centered on the often cruel but always fascinating struggle for survival on Earth. This film focuses mostly on technology, industry, and our increasingly machine-operated world, focusing on the United States. Not only are its images largely computer-generated, the film is in itself about computer-generated images. Strings of numbers swirl into a tunnel of black and green code, rainbow-colored Windows icons flash across the screen, and a glowing computerized globe twirls in programmed perfection. More natural imagery, such as a horse running, oceans waves crashing, or soldiers sounding off in formation, is displayed in computer-edited negative. While the visuals start to look like stock photography, their generic nature communicates another message about the narrowing of our vision as technology and industry facilitate the conversion to a more efficient, systemized, productivity driven global society.

Theatrical release: October 18, 2002 (LA/NY)

DVD Features:

Region 1
Keep Case
Full Frame - 1.33
Interactive Features:
Interactive Menus

Distributor Notes: Naqoyqatsi: Life As War

Miramax Home Entertainment and Oscar(R)-winning filmmaker Steven Soderbergh (Best Director, TRAFFIC, 2000) present NAQOYQATSI ("Life As War"), from filmmaker Godfrey Reggio, in collaboration with composer Phillip Glass, whose original score features renowned cellist Yo-Yo Ma. In this cinematic concert -- the concluding film of the Qatsi Trilogy preceded by the critically acclaimed KOYAANISQATSI ("Life Out Of Balance"), and POWAQQATSI ("Life In Transformation") -- mesmerizing images reanimated from everyday reality, then visually altered with state-of-the-art digital techniques, chronicle the shift from a world organized by the principles of nature to one dominated by technology, the synthetic, and the virtual. Extremes of intimacy and spectacle, tragedy and hope, fuse in a tidal wave of visuals and music, giving rise to a unique artistic experience that reflects Reggio's visions of a brave new globalized world.

Source: Buena Vista Home Entertainment

Godfrey Reggio: American Director

Godfrey Reggio: American Director

Philip Glass: American Composer

"...Technically, [the] pic is a polished gem..."
"...[Yo-Yo Ma] lends a refreshing human element to the enterprise..."
"...Reggio's continual visual barrage is absorbing as well as thought-provoking..."