This is an original Japanese B2 theatrical poster produced for the first Japanese release of Naqoyqatsi / 「ナコイカッツィ」, Godfrey Reggio’s 2002 non-narrative film and the concluding chapter of the celebrated Qatsi trilogy.
The film opened theatrically in Japan on 28 February 2004, distributed by Toshiba Entertainment. This extraordinary Japanese campaign artwork was created by Tadanori Yokoo / 横尾忠則, whose printed signature appears in the lower-right corner.
Film background
Naqoyqatsi was written and directed by Godfrey Reggio and completes the experimental film trilogy that began with Koyaanisqatsi in 1982 and continued with Powaqqatsi in 1988.
The film has no conventional dramatic plot, dialogue or principal cast. Instead, it operates as a large-scale visual and musical essay examining a contemporary world increasingly governed by technology, virtual imagery, competition, global communication and organised violence.
The title is derived from the Hopi language. Its meanings are given in the film as:
“A life of killing each other.”
“War as a way of life.”
“Civilized violence.”
Where the earlier Qatsi films frequently contrasted natural landscapes with industrial development, Naqoyqatsi presents a world in which the original image has itself become unstable.
Archival footage, scientific imagery, news broadcasts, historical photographs and familiar cultural symbols are digitally altered, reanimated and combined with computer-generated material. The resulting images appear simultaneously recognisable and artificial, reflecting the film’s concern with the replacement of direct human experience by technologically manufactured representation.
The film’s opening image is a digitally transformed version of Pieter Bruegel the Elder’s Tower of Babel. This becomes a recurring symbol of human ambition, technological expansion and the breakdown of common language.
Rather than presenting a conventional argument, Reggio surrounds the viewer with rapidly changing images of warfare, sport, politics, commerce, machinery, celebrity, scientific research and mass communication.
The principal creative credits include:
Written and Directed by: Godfrey Reggio
Editor and Visual Designer: Jon Kane
Music: Philip Glass
Cello Solos: Yo-Yo Ma
Executive Producer: Steven Soderbergh
Producers: Joe Beirne, Godfrey Reggio and Lawrence Taub
Director of Photography: Russell Lee Fine
Japanese Distributor: Toshiba Entertainment
Japanese Poster Design: Tadanori Yokoo / 横尾忠則
Music by Philip Glass and Yo-Yo Ma
Philip Glass’s score is fundamental to the structure of Naqoyqatsi, functioning as the film’s emotional voice in the absence of dialogue.
In contrast to the heavily processed digital imagery, Glass composed the score predominantly for an acoustic symphonic ensemble. A solo cello, performed by Yo-Yo Ma, runs throughout the work and provides a distinctly human presence against the film’s synthetic and technologically manipulated visual world.
The score was conducted by Michael Riesman and performed by an orchestra together with members of the Philip Glass Ensemble.
Poster design by Tadanori Yokoo
The Japanese poster was created by Tadanori Yokoo, one of the central figures in post-war Japanese graphic art.
Yokoo abandons conventional film-poster hierarchy in favour of an overwhelming collage composed from architecture, human anatomy, scientific diagrams, military imagery, machinery and fragments of mass culture.
His design is divided into three horizontal visual registers, separated by two solid black bars. These divisions resemble cinematic frames, television screens or sections of a filmstrip, while the imagery continues across them to form one uninterrupted composition.
The black bars are printed components of the artwork and are not joins, seams or folds.
Upper composition
The upper section is dominated by an enormous pair of human eyes rendered in pale monochrome.
A rocket or missile rises vertically between them, its exhaust forming a bright yellow explosion above a fragment of the Tower of Babel. The rocket appears to connect human vision, technological power and destruction within a single central axis.
Above the eyes is a vivid pink, red and violet cloud containing silhouetted human figures. The surrounding darkness is filled with hundreds of illuminated squares, suggesting city lights, digital pixels or electronic information.
Two falling or diving figures appear on either side of the rocket—one white and one orange—introducing images of physical movement, competition and vulnerability.
The title:
“NAQOYQATSI”
appears in condensed red lettering at the top.
Central composition
The middle register is built around Bruegel’s Tower of Babel, one of the film’s principal recurring images.
The structure rises from a fragmented landscape while projectile-like forms move across the composition at extreme speed. Mathematical symbols, diagrams and scientific notations occupy the left side, contrasting systems of rational measurement with the emotional chaos elsewhere in the image.
A monumental red letter:
“A”
appears against an intense yellow-orange field. Its unexplained scale turns the letter itself into an image—part alphabet, warning sign and graphic interruption.
At the centre of the tower is a screaming human face, while additional faces appear along the right edge. Their open mouths and distorted expressions introduce an immediate sense of alarm and psychological instability.
The red title:
“NAQOYQATSI”
is repeated across the centre of the design.
Lower composition
The lower register moves into an increasingly mechanical and digitised environment.
Rows of golden anatomical or skeletal figures stand beside a sharply receding transport corridor. Their repetition gives them the appearance of manufactured human forms moving through an automated system.
A blue vortex filled with streams of binary-style information dominates the centre, suggesting data transmission, electronic communication and the absorption of physical reality into digital code.
At right, an enormous dark industrial or transport mechanism advances towards the viewer, while fragments of architecture and landscape dissolve around it.
The principal title block reads:
“Miramax Films and Steven Soderbergh present”
“NAQOYQATSI”
“LIFE AS WAR”
「ナコイカッツィ」
The Japanese text is the phonetic katakana rendering of the film’s title.
Yokoo’s printed signature appears discreetly at the lower-right corner. This is part of the original printed design and should not be interpreted as a separate hand-signature.
The repeated red titles, monochrome photographic fragments and isolated areas of intense pink, orange, yellow and blue create a design that closely mirrors the film’s visual method: familiar images are stripped of their original context and reorganised into a new, deliberately unstable reality.
Yokoo’s involvement gives this poster particular importance beyond conventional film memorabilia. It represents a significant meeting point between Japanese post-war graphic design, American experimental cinema and the music of Philip Glass.
Condition
Very Good+ condition. The poster retains strong black and white contrast, vivid red title lettering and excellent detail throughout Tadanori Yokoo’s exceptionally complex collage.
Reference: K354.
Please review all photographs carefully, as they show the exact poster and its condition.
This is an original Japanese B2 theatrical poster from the film’s first Japanese release in 2004, not a reproduction or later decorative reprint.
It is now over 20 years old.
Certificate of Authenticity included.
