Zabriskie Point (1970)

Mark is bored with the continuing student strike on campus. His friends get arrested and he goes to bail them out of jail. Instead, he is arrested. He is released and buys guns with his friend. During a campus protest, a policeman is shot. Mark flees the scene and steals a small plane. He's flying over the desert and Daria driving her car. He lands and joins her.It's a little too free form and amateurish especially considering Michelangelo Antonioni as its director. It could trim some of the first half. Sometimes, it looks like a student film. It's almost halfway before Mark and Daria get together. The leads do more or less student level acting. They are hippie-rama and the embodiment of that newfound free-spirit. It's fine to have a road trip through the desert and suddenly, there is a hippie sex orgy in the dusty landscape. As a narrative film, it is a meandering slow jog. It's not surreal enough to be a hippie psychedelic fantasy. I wouldn't say it's beautifully filmed but the desert setting is compelling. At least, that's better than the real estate office. The explosions montage as a finale only serves to punctuate how lackluster most of the movie is. The box office was an unmitigated financial disaster. It's a little better than that.

And are the modern consumerism and capitalistic society pushing us to similar explosion of counterculture like they did back in the late 1960s. And have we learned the lessons of extroverted freedom. Why should all the young people watch "Zabriskie point"…As a fan of cinema I have always anticipated an interesting point of view from Michelangelo Antonioni. And "Zabriskie point" does deliver that. Although in its own time it did not receive positive reviews, it became a classical movie and a symbolic representation of a whole cultural and historic era of struggle against the imposed artificial values of society.Every decade has its own significant symbols. And the years of the 1960s were a major turning point in our modern view of life.The scenes from the bubbling city and the still Zabriskie point at the Death Valley (which in fact was represented as an alive place where the feeling of seclusion is transformed into a "fertile" place where love peace and happiness prevail.The powerful imagery soaked into this film convinces the viewer that there is something wrong with the human nature of constant exploitation of every possible resource. And the most important resource which are we still expropriating is the human empathy. Exactly empathy is what is missing in the city where Mark revolts against the authorities and status quo. On the other hand Daria is a free loving wayward character who is traveling through the desert. And when the two meet we can see a storm of playful emotions arising. The political context and the cultural clashes of various social movements are colorfully represented in the conversations between the main characters.The paths of the two strangers are different, but they intersect to show us that everything happens for a reason. And the two main characters part their ways because the real life also works in such impossible patterns.And at the end when the disillusioned Daria blows up mansions and consumerist products with her mind we can see the real energy of counterculture. The youth subculture seems potent as ever even from our point of view. And now we have to ask ourselves why do we have the same dissatisfied feeling as they did back there? And is it a bit different? My feeling is that we haven't renounced the problems at all. We just changed the way we perceive them and postponed the decisions we have to take. Decisions which have to solve inequality and more importantly transform our egotism into something more transcendent as a quality. Death and Life should not be the main measures which we take into account when we treat our fellow humans and more importantly – our home, the Earth.

Call it question in taste (mine or others) or perhaps a message lost over time, but I thought the movie was incredibly boring and biased beyond belief. And I love that Pink Floyd performed original music for the film, but I didn't appreciate the music that they came up with, either. Some of the music sounded like broken guitars trying to remember what melodies were.There was a plot...a thin one...in the style of a movie like "The Trip" but with less drug-taking. It was almost like a late-60's version of the future movie "Natural Born Killers" but less gritty and fantastic. The hours of footage of just driving around in the desert or through the city must have taken an entire year to edit down into a movie.I get it...city and development bustle & The Man VS ideals set up by cavemen (insert hippies or radicals if you feel inclined). There is no growth in our protagonist or this woman he meets, Daria. Speaking of Daria, she's so easily brainwashed by the first radical she meets, and has the most obvious of fantasies about her boss' development in the desert. I'm sure Antonioni wanted cheers to happen in the theaters, but all I had were deep laughs from the bewilderment that this movie was causing within me.It belongs in the archives for people who enjoy political-striking nostalgia of the late-60's and there are a few good tunes from well- known groups on the soundtrack, but it isn't for everyone.

The one thing I always like about a Michelangelo Antonioni movie is that it never lays out everything for you. You constantly have to invest yourself into the movie and fill in all of the blanks for yourself.In that regard this is also being a very typical Antonioni movie, that perhaps is not as good or intriguing as his earlier works but it still remains a more than good watch, especially for those who like or appreciate his style of film-making and storytelling. The main premise and time period of the movie is pretty interesting. It isn't really featuring a main and straightforward story but it's more a movie that is dealing with its reoccurring themes, concerning the sixties, rebellious youth, in America. It's also being a true product of its time in that regard, that gives a good portrayal of its time and overall mood.But thing that mostly prevented me from seeing this as one of Antonioni's best was its second half. The movie started to become more vague, which also made the movie less interesting and pleasant to follow. It somehow also felt less focused, though its second half in essence is probably more focused than its first, since it features less characters and locations in it. The acting is a bit of a mixed bag. Seems to me that they mostly used non-professional actors for this movie, which should add to its realism but more often takes you out of the movie.It's still a good movie and also original, as you would expect from Antonioni!7/10 http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/