Koyaanisqatsi
Island Alive | Release Date: April 27, 1983 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
72
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 10 Critic Reviews
Positive:
7
Mixed:
3
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
Slant MagazineChuck Bowen
Koyaanisqatsi is enraged with modern societal convention, but still expresses awe of the spontaneous, incidental poetry that can exist despite invisible oppression. Read full review
83
The A.V. ClubNoel Murray
Reggio has a flair for iconography, and whatever external baggage Koyaanisqatsi and Powaqqatsi may carry, they should be admired for their vivid, astonishing illustrations of humanity consuming itself in clouds of its own smoke and debris. Read full review
80
TV Guide MagazineStaff (Not Credited)
Koyaanisqatsi asks the viewers to ponder their relationship to a social system that has come to dominate them rather than serve them. Much of the film is exhilarating and beautiful in a way that may seem counterproductive to that end. But the cumulative effect is more meditative than frightening. It's not a world-shaking film, but it is an affecting one. Read full review
80
SlateSeth Stevenson
There are utterly transcendent moments amid this 87-minute music video. It’s all about that pumping, hypnotic, emotionally-gripping Philip Glass vibe. Read full review
78
Austin ChronicleMarjorie Baumgarten
The worlds of the natural and the artificial are compared and contrasted in this non-narrative visual orgy. Read full review
75
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger Ebert
Koyaanisqatsi is an impressive visual and listening experience, that Reggio and Glass have made wonderful pictures and sounds, and that this film is a curious throwback to the 1960s, when it would have been a short subject to be viewed through a marijuana haze. Far out. Read full review
70
The New York TimesVincent Canby
Koyaanisqatsi is an oddball and - if one is willing to put up with a certain amount of solemn picturesqueness - entertaining trip. Read full review
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