Visitors (2014)

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  TheMovieDiorama

  4 / 10

  Visitors is unable to convey a meaningful message through its sequential clips. Well, this one certainly tested my patience. Director Reggio, known for his illustrious "Qatsi" trilogy, attempts to thematically explore humanity's relationship with modern technology through a series of miniature slow-motion clips. This mostly comprises of entranced faces staring directly at the camera, a dilapidated amusement park and overbearing concrete buildings. An eclectic selection of contemporary images one may find when watching the tape from 'Ringu'.
  
  Ironically, Reggio portrays this documentary as a horror film, concluding his non-verbal art installation piece with images of deforestation, pollution and abandonment. Acting as a last resort to attempt to convey the apparent message of humanity's enslavement by technology causing the disinterest of our planet's welfare. Y'know what? It's condescending as hell! A pretentiously contemporaneous method of communicating an issue we are already aware of, except instead of actually displaying the dark side of civilisation, we are presented with an hour of faces. Hauntingly hypnotic? Definitely, particularly when accompanied by Glass' repetitive orchestral piece that further enhances the trance-like state when staring at a screen for an hour and a half. But absurdly ineffective due to the lasting power of these images being absent almost entirely.
  
  Reggio could've condensed this down to thirty minutes and still have the same result. An additional hour of gormless eyes and general unhappiness is not going to further the director's point. Self-absorbing indulgence, I expected nothing less from an artist who is attempting to claw back his cult status from 'Koyaanisqatsi'. Heck, the images themselves aren't majestic enough to appreciate, unlike 'Samsara'. This is art. It's ambiguous. People will extrapolate something different out of it. Whilst some clips substantiated their purpose, notably the auditorium staring at an ape, most just had me rating faces out of ten due to their lack of impact in a message that should've been conveyed with more urgency.

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