I'm going to take a moment to expand on what I initially wrote, because I had to cut the post short due to wrist pain.
I found Decasia to be an intense, often sad, often frightening portrayal of decay in the world, and especially in the world of human civilization. The repetition of circular motion kept bringing me back to the idea of cycles; cycles of growth and decay, birth and death, peace and war, happiness and sadness, etc. The fact that the film all had been aging in an archive guaranteed that it was not contemporary, which I feel added to the overall feel of the film. You do not watch Decasia and see scenes that you are familiar with (at least I didn't). It was a journey through the last century of human interaction, advancement, and the destruction that has come with it all. I can understand how one may watch it and just think it is stupid, but they are missing something incredibly meaningful in the film. As I stated before, I would love to watch the film again, and will probably go out of my way to do so at a later date. It was a total trip to watch. It was able to almost completely remove me from my normal mode of consciousness and take me into this insane world of birth and death. Thumbs up for Decasia!
The cycles, the patterns, the struggles, the question of progress and the ultimate mortality and decay of all things (including the film) certainly were at the forefront. It is a melancholy meditation on existence and remembering it was completed and screened during the aftermath of the destruction of 9/11 further underscores the themes you identified.
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