Naqoyqatsi means, "War Life." The film, Naqoyqatsi, by the same geniuses that made Koyaanisqatsi, represents human life bound to technology. As the third film in the series, Naqoyqatsi explores more than our human relationship with the natural world, but also our relationship with the technological landscape we've created. The film proposes that technology and human nature are now inseparable. Computers, like the air we breathe, keep us alive. Technology is civilization.
No doubt, Naqoyqatsi is an art film. Not surprising either, that the movie asserts complex ideas about human nature, and so poetically. The basic idea is something we've been talking about in science-fiction for decades: the introduction of technology has forced human civilization into uncharted territories from which we will never escape. Where Hollywood films dilute the important questions of this kind of thinking, with romance or high-tech explosions, Naqoyqatsi makes sure to leave no stone unturned. The film asks you to separate yourself from life as you've seen it. The perspective is so startling, you'd have thought you've been brainwashed your entire life.
I find it appropriate that the film equates war and technology. As stated previously, Koyaanisqatsi was entered into the National Film Registry for its important historical documentation, and in the same way Naqoyqatsi makes significant observations, though with demanding artistic conviction. The film demonstrates the extent to which technology has become the fabric of the human universe. We build tools that build tools that slowly change infrastructure, culture, civilization, and certainly human relationships. We build tools that change the ways we perceive ourselves. We build tools that build tools that kill people. If we wanted, we could use our tools to destroy everything, all other tools, to erase all sign of human existence. We create to destroy.
Still, I think the word "war" is subjective. Naqoyqatsi means more than to say technology can be used as a weapon. "War" in this case, represents our relationship with nature, and beyond that, the grand idea of life itself. Today, to be human means something entirely different. It's a timely idea. With technology we're waging a war on the way things used to be, or the natural way of things. Technology is pure intellect, pure reason, pure humanity. We're at war with "the way of life." We're battling previous definitions of "nature."
Having never seen the movie I don't know how much I can comment on this post, but it seems to me that humans, throughout history, have been constantly evolving because of technology. While war is one example of how technology has changed our existence and our relationship to the earth and each other, other examples might include exploration, increasing life expectancy, stimulating our brains with entertainment, etc. I think human existence has been at a war with its own culture since the beginning of human existence and that is a major characteristic that separates us from other animals.
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