by MARK SLUTSKY

Nearly every image in director Godfrey Reggio’s Naqoyqatsi has been digitally altered in some way, and boy, does he never let you forget it. The last installment in the far-out ’qatsi trilogy (preceded by Koyaanisqatsi and Powaqqatsi) takes a new tack: instead of filming crazy stuff all over the world and editing it to a Philip Glass score, Reggio has put together a movie largely from lame stock footage, tweaking it all with computer f/x programs. The result looks like a two-hour montage of cheap graphics software demonstrations, also edited to a Glass score.

Like the other ’qatsi movies, Naqoyqatsi has no plot. It’s a jumble of images and sounds of all types purporting to make a point about the detrimental effect of technology on culture and society. Reggio’s main strategy is to illuminate via sharp juxtaposition. Thus we get images of dollar bills followed by cheering crowds, or scenes of warfare and violence matched with screenshots of video games. Real subtle stuff. To make it even worse, none of the images are even remotely visually interesting, especially when put through whatever low-res video toaster the filmmakers were using (unless you find the idea of a baby floating in space to be fascinating in some way).

After a point, though, the movie becomes pretty funny to watch. Apparently, Naqoyqatsi is divided into three “movements,” but you might find it more amusing, as I did, to make up your own chapter titles for the movie’s various sections: “What Makes a Computer Run.” “Magical Equations and @ Symbols Flying Through Space.” “A Salute to Albert Einstein.” “The Facial Expressions of Hippies.”

Naqoyqatsi is supposed to be some kind of provocative head trip, but the unfortunate truth is that the movie serves its point too well: the filmmaker’s fixation with lame video technology effectively undermines the message he was trying to convey. :

Naqoyqatsi opens Friday, Dec. 13, at Cinéma du Parc

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