Koyaanisqatsi · reception & legacy
1983 · Godfrey Reggio
How Koyaanisqatsi has been received, argued over, and remembered.
The arc
Dismissed by some 1983 critics as a gorgeous but empty 'coffee-table movie', it steadily climbed to landmark status — inducted into the National Film Registry in 2000 and now treated as the definitive work of non-narrative cinema.
What's debated
The forever-debate: is it a profound statement or a feature-length screensaver — and does making industrial sprawl look this beautiful accidentally undercut its own warning?
Its footprint
Its Philip Glass score and time-lapse cityscapes have been borrowed and parodied so relentlessly — in ads, music videos, and films like Watchmen and the first GTA IV trailer using 'Pruit Igoe' — that the movie can now feel like a copy of its own imitators.
Where it stands
A cinephile rite of passage and Letterboxd staple — the 'you must see it big, loud, and preferably once in your life' entry in the experimental canon.
Named by the director
Influences Godfrey Reggio has publicly named — the director's own word, distinct from the inferred lines of influence.
- Los Olvidados (1950) — Reggio has repeatedly said Buñuel's film — which he screened for street-gang kids he worked with in New Mexico — was the film that turned him toward cinema.
- Luis Buñuel — Reggio cites Buñuel as the filmmaker whose work awakened him to the power of film as a medium.