Take it from someone who's seen too many of them: It's very rare to come across a video documentary without narration. This is perhaps understandable; the purpose of a documentary is to document, to inform, and unless a viewer is already very knowledgeable about the depicted subject matter, they'll likely need some explanation for what they watch
in order to comprehend it. Narration allows a documentary to tie a disparate series of shots together; it's the glue that welds a pile of scraps into a moving collage.
However, narration is not without its problems. First and foremost, it breaks the flow of the moving image and interposes itself over the viewer, telling them what they're seeing instead of letting them interpret it for themselves. If the narration is badly written (and it often is), it can
actively detract from the experience and be as obnoxious as an unrelated advertisement playing in the background while you're trying to watch the film. If the narration is poorly delivered (again, often is), it can make an otherwise credible documentary seem crass, unintentionally funny, or just pathetic.
So, how about documentaries without narration? There aren't too many of them, but in this post we're going to examine a few, and see if we can summarize in words what the films detailed in images.
First, and most atypical, is Homo Sapiens (2016), directed by Nikolaus Geyrhalter. (JustWatch, Kanopy) It consists exclusively of static shots of locations built and since abandoned by humans. Its soundtrack is entirely environmental; while watching it, you'll hear only the same sounds that would grace your ears if you were at these places in person. Not only is there no narration, there is no music, there are no humans onscreen, named or otherwise; nor is there any camera movement of any kind. The only concession to holding the viewer's attention is to periodically switch shots from one location to another. Short of Andy Warhol's Empire, it's hard to imagine a more thorough repudiation of the conventions of modern film that still qualifies as a film.
Some of the locations in the film are conventionally picturesque, like a colorful mosaic mural overlooking an underground pool. Others are less so, such as a Japanese McDonalds abandoned after the Fukushima Daichii nuclear disaster. Through the lens of Homo Sapiens, all have a peculiar aesthetic attraction, a mystery and poignancy that would not be there if they were populated. Aurally, the film is very environmental; the most consistent sound throughout is the wind. Dripping water and chirping birds are also frequent, and every so often the listener will be greeted by the creaking of rusting metal, or the groan of decaying, overstressed wood. A viewer would be wise to watch it in the quietest situation possible for full effect.
Homo Sapiens is one of the few movies I can think of that extensively utilizes the concept of negative space - a section in a creative work in which there is nothing. A visual artist would recognize this as a gap between the subjects of the picture; a patch of blank canvas or unmarked paper, a void which, if used skillfully, can turn a potentially overdone picture
into an expansive, memorable composition. A musician might understand negative space as the lull between notes, a pause that may serve to release or heighten tension, quiet to accentuate the loud. The most obvious musical example would be the avant-garde composer John Cage's oft-misunderstood work 4'33", which consists entirely of four minutes and thirty-three seconds of an orchestra not playing their instruments. Cage's intent wasn't that listeners would hear complete, suffocating silence; rather, instead of hearing expected music, they would hear the unexpected music that an ordinary song or symphony would smother: whispering, shuffling, rustling, coughing. By stripping away conventions like narrative, characterization, and drama, and leaving only what in other films would be dismissed as "the background," Homo Sapiens draws the viewer into a liminal space where they are alone with their own senses. This documentary, by excluding humans entirely, says a great deal about them; their creativity, their wastefulness, their shortsightedness. About the person viewing it, and about the mysterious persons who once built and inhabited its locales. It invites the viewer not just to observe, but to think, speculate, hypothesize. Who built these places, and why? Where are they? Why are they abandoned? How long will they last? What lives there now? In the film, there are no answers; there are only the questions of the void.
Reactions to the film are almost entirely subjective; some may find it intriguing or fascinating, some may think that it's simply too boring to sit through more than a few minutes of it. But Homo Sapiens isn't so much critic-proof as critic-porous; attempts to praise or condemn it about anything other than its technical aspects must simply pass through it without effect, like a ship sailing through fog. To me, however, it's a unique and wholly original work that I've watched to completion several times...and, I admit, fallen asleep to at least once.
Second on the platter is Elementa (2020), directed by Richard Sidey with appropriately ambient music by Boreal Taiga. (JustWatch, Tubi) Elementa omits color instead of music; the entire movie (except the titles) is in black and white, and the white is so vivid at times that it's almost silver. This is one movie where having your screen's brightness and contrast adjusted properly is absolutely essential. It's also unusual in its extremely wide aspect ratio; approximately 3:1.1. This appears to mimic the the long-extinct Cinerama film format, which utilized three separate screens with an overall ratio of 2.89:1. Elementa notably expands upon the Cinerama concept; instead of using three screens and three projectors to produce one huge image, it often uses one screen to display three images. For instance, one sequence might include a distant shot of an animal, next to a close-up of the same animal, next to a landscape shot of the habitat that the animal inhabits. It could be thought of as comic book-style, with several different panels that can be viewed individually or all at once. It provides an interesting opportunity for the viewer to have a more involving visual experience by offering them the choice to focus on one panel, or all, without being overloaded with visual information.
The cinematography is semi-abstract, with an emphasis upon patterns and sharp contrasts. Most of the location shots appear to have been taken in Arctic and sub-Arctic areas, the better to contrast the white ice and snow with the black of water, rocks, and pine trees. Like Homo Sapiens, Elementa has no narrative; it does, however, have characters, in the form of the animals that wander across its frames. Birds, bears and whales simply go about their lives, quite unaware that they hold starring roles in a moving monochromatic artwork.
Elementa is an entirely angst-free film. It contains no violence, no jumpscares, no jarring edits; everything flows into everything else, and before you know it, its brief 45-minute runtime is over. My only real complaint about it is that I wish it was longer, and that's not something I can say about many recent films.
Certainly I wouldn't say it about Powaqqatsi (1988). (JustWatch) Undoubtedly the most famous and widely watched of this post's movies, this is the second film in director Godfrey Reggio's "Qatsi Triology." All three films in that trilogy fit our criteria, having no narration or other dialogue, just images and music composed by Philip Glass. But, since the first film, Koyaanisqatsi, has already been analyzed to hell and back, and I simply don't like the third film, Naqoyqatsi, we'll cover this one. Powaqqatsi's title, from the Hopi language, translates roughly as "life-consuming sorcerer," and would be monstrously appropriate as an alternate name for the World Wide Web.
Powaqqatsi lets the viewer know right off the bat that it's a very different film from its predecessor. Whereas Koyaanisqatsi starts off with a shot of Native American rock paintings and a slow, somber dirge, Powaqqatsi begins with cheery, energetic music - over a sequence of exhausted mine workers hauling sacks of ore out of a mud pit.
Due in no small part to this opening scene, some viewers (and probably more non-viewers) have accused Powaqqatsi of being exploitative, of utilizing the photogenic poverty of Third World people to construct a story that has nothing to do with them. Personally, I don't think that the criticism fits. Aside from the simple fact that there is no narration or subtitling, so that it's up the viewer to interpret what they see, it's clear that many of the people documented in their daily activities in Powaqqatsi are not unhappy. In fact, I'm pretty sure that there are more on-screen smiles per capita in this movie than there are among the industrialized denizens of Koyaanisqatsi. The criticism could easily be reversed by stating that those who make it are foisting their own assumptions about materialism and prosperity onto people who probably couldn't care less, and have bigger concerns in any case.
The overwhelming majority of Powaqqatsi was shot outdoors; there are few shots taken inside buildings, and it appears that many of the people in the film are living not far above subsistence-level. Much of their onscreen activity is comprised of procuring and preparing food, be it by fishing, planting, stock-raising, harvesting, grinding, or cooking. The viewer visits locales and cultures throughout the world, mostly in (then) undeveloped countries in the Southern Hemisphere. After spending the first half of the film in rural areas and small villages, the film transitions to cities which are horrendously congested and polluted, yet still permeated with an air of exoticism. For viewers in North America and western Europe, Powaqqatsi lacks the sense of familiar-made-fantastic that permeated Koyaanisqatsi; it feels more like a travelogue than a thorough dissection of a single culture. Befitting a travelogue, it also depicts many local folk traditions, from parades to play-fighting; like everything else in the movie, they're entirely open to interpretation.
If Koyaanisqatsi was one of several logical conclusions to the 1970s Hollywood auteur movement in film, which encouraged directors to point their cameras at whatever they wished for as long as they liked, Powaqqatsi drags the auteur into the MTV era with the introduction of (relatively) rapid editing and cross-cutting. The "Video Dream" sequence, a montage of contemporary TV commercials and news broadcasts, could easily pass for a pastiche-based music video - compare Talk Talk's video for "It's My Life" - or a modern medley of reedited footage that one might find in the more creative corners of YouTube. The editing in Powwaqqatsi is considerably tighter than that in Koyaanisqatsi, though in my opinion there are still some shots that go on for too long. Powaqqatsi's music is also substantially better; certainly it's more varied and adventurous, with influences of musical traditions from the Middle East, South America, and India, among others.
For me, the film only has two significant weaknesses vis a vis its predecessor. First, it mostly lacks the context of the natural landscapes found in Koyaanisqatsi. It is very, very people- centric; while there are aerial shots of built-up areas, there's scarcely a scene in the entire movie that doesn't include either people or objects made by people. What animals there are in the film are almost entirely domestic. Perhaps the director was trying to make a (non-verbal) statement about explosive population growth and overcrowding in these parts of the world; I don't know. But I do think that the film might have been better if the viewer was given more room to breathe, instead of being confronted with people, people, people at every turn.
Second, while the film as a whole is technically superior to Koyaanisqatsi, Powaqqatsi to me lacks any real standout sequences. It doesn't have the aforementioned landscape shots of Koyaanisqatsi, nor the destructive energy of the "Pruitt Igoe" sequence, nor the mystical otherworldliness of "The Grid" sequence, nor even the somber fatalism of the final rocket launch and explosion. Personally, I thought that the most memorable shot was in the scene entitled "Mr. Suso #1," of a rusted-out car chassis sitting in the median of a superhighway, stolid and immovable as transparent traffic rushes around it and an Arab singer keens and wails. (But even that only lasts about a minute.) Powaqqatsi is less sensationalized, more grounded, perhaps more of a "real" documentary; but after the credits roll, it isn't as immediately memorable as Koyaanisqatsi. Which must be why Koyaanisqatsi is written about so much more often! All the same, I recommend seeing both of them; perhaps Powaqqatsi during the day, and Koyaanisqatsi the following night. (And Naqoyqatsi, the final entry in the trilogy...not at all. Sorry, it just ain't good.)
In closing, there are indeed silent documentaries worth watching out there; think of them as the film equivalent of ambient music - open to interpretation, not overbearing, yet often thought-provoking and unsettling. In a world where it often feels like you're listening to (or reading!) unwanted, irrelevant yammering with almost every waking moment, they provide an opportunity to simply sit back, gaze, and chill. Or do a little yammering yourself.
