Zabriskie Point

I must admit, it's been (around) 2 years since I last saw Zabriskie Point...

For some reason it's never totally left my conscience yet generally for all the wrong reasons. While the cinematography is certainly impressive throughout I found that the whole ordeal just dragged, and dragged...and dragged, literally to the point of tedium. In the first instance then, Zabriskie Point is clearly suffering from pace, or lack of. The 'desert' or 'love' scene being a prime example of this - it's not art; it's not even vaguely artistic - but mundane and self indulgent. The gorgeous and sweltering locales of the desert are what's worth noting here; not two young protagonists who appear to share little, if no, connection.

In that respect it would seem that most people's opinions of Zabriskie Point are either deeply 'for' it or very much 'against' it. Were the 60s really like this?! Zabriskie Point seems to linger on too many stereotypes and while films such as Easy Rider managed to successful capture the ambience of counter-culture 1960s America Zabriskie Point falls just a bit short. Antonioni certainly knows how to lay-on some thick anti-establishment slurs but it's just so blatantly obvious and very hard to believe. On the plus side, the documentary-esque footage at the start of the film does help to give off a very 'real' vibe and is duly convincing. The acting, or lack of, is apt to an extent but hardly noteworthy. This is the frustrating element - it just seems to try so hard and has now gained a small reputation of being somewhat of a 'cult classic' but it's not justified. For those who try to read what they want to read into a film for the sake of art or intellect; those who subsequently look for hidden meanings that aren't there - maybe try this. If I wanted to do that I'd happily watch El Topo - not that I would ever compare the two.

Oh, did I mention Pink Floyd contributed to the soundtrack – perhaps one of the only serious redeeming qualities here. Thanks Dave and Roger.

6/10

These are the late 60's and the early 70's as I have always imagined. As usual Antonioni uses all the registers of communications: the sounds, the colours, the movements of the actors. You could say that the plot is not well balanced, that the dialogues are often silly and meaningless, and maybe you are right. But Antonioni is a master in evoking feelings, simple, rough feelings, using all the tools a filmmaker has.

The movie has some jewels, and among them the most shining are the 10 final minutes. The oneiric explosion sequence, with the music that comes and goes, with the time expanded and slowed down, with the kitsch colours of meaningless objects moving upward in the blue sky. In the movie history this is one of the best images of the explosive and destructive power of the ingenuity of that generation, that wanted to live changing the existing rules. Playing with colour, time, sounds and music Antonioni has given once more a proof of his unforgettable art: he is at the same time a painter, a music composer, a dancer, a poet.

The movie presents a view of the United States that only a foreigner could have. Sadly, foreigners can't relate to it and persons from the United States cannot believe it. The movie is, therefore, caught in limbo without an audience. Reviews of the film tend to reflect this.

I have lived away from the US for 30 years and can now pretend to be able to understand what Antonioni was wanting to achieve. My view is that he has excelled. The film is a stunning indictment of the United States and, tragically, I see no remediation in the 29 years since it was first released.

Antonioni really showed some 'cojones' when he had this movie made. He went to America working under a contract from the most lavish studio (MGM) and he made the most damning portrait of American society i've ever seen. Having seen LA first hand this is the most accurate portrayal of the crowded, overheated and impersonal city. If only Antonioni had met Bill Hicks...

The subsequent burial by the studio is understandable, after such a whopping investment and dismal return. It is sad that people don't get to see this film any more as i believe Antonioni has been proved right. Here he predicts the end of the hippie/civil rights movement in the politics of America. Everyone is much more interested in what goes into their pockets and the relentless expansion of living space into the inhospitable (yet beautiful) desert and beyond. How i would love to see interest in this film re-kindled and a lavish DVD release.

I beseech people to watch Zabriskie Point with an open mind and an open heart. We have a genuinely unique film commenting on a turning point in the history of the most powerful nation on the planet, and we have forgotten about it.

An unexpected gem.

Antonioni, by making this film, had assumed the role of Papa Smurf to all the little long-haired, American, radical student-Smurfs. He had taken them under the guiding protection of his European communist wings, showing appreciation and support for their confused American ways. (These Smurfs are red and wear blue, not the other way around.) The radical Smurfs were happy to get the guidance of a wise old man with gray hair who regularly preys to the God of all long-haired Smurfs, Lenin the Communist - another wise old man whose beard made the Smurfs take him even more seriously, for it symbolized something wise, though they did not quite know why they regarded the beard to have this kind of deep effect on them. Castro, another wise bearded man, has often profited from this confusion and exuded magical powers with his beard over his naive overseas admirers. (Not to mention Che Guevara: that beard has a certain je-ne-sais-pas-quoi about it, makes one want to immediately embrace Marx and his lovely, pacifistic teachings…) The film starts with a muddled meeting of radically stupid radical students, who engage in dialogues that truly redefine the word "confused". As confused as a blind-folded dog falling of a high-story building into a bottomless pit. Suddenly, the movie's "hero" (well, Antonioni's hero) rises up and says something to his pathetic left-wing peers and then leaves, hoping that this display of "mega-coolness" will improve his James Dean image and vastly increase his chances of getting laid with the best "chicks" in the next mass hippie orgy. Eventually he gets into trouble with cops (i.e. pigs) at a rally, and spends the movie under the blue American capitalist skies, looking for freedom… Or something like that.

Antonioni's predictable assault on capitalism is not only intellectually hollow, but has (or had) nothing new to offer; it's just the same old trigger-happy one-dimensional cops, businessmen discussing business deals (and what's wrong with that, isn't that how Antonioni's movies get made?), and endless shots of TV commercials and billboards advertising the oh-so morally decadent products for the abhorrent, selfish, and greedy right-wing rabble-population who thinks of no one but themselves, their families, their work, and their children.

Papa Smurf Antonioni, just like his long-haired Smurfs and Smurfettes of the late 60s, failed to notice the most obvious and vital aspect about their silly movement: they were allowed to have their laughable meetings and express their anti-establishment opinions freely within that very establishment, whereas the students in those countries whose left-wing systems they admired, did not (and still do not). By far the greatest irony about the hippies - and Antonioni, naturally, failed to realize this as well (his judgment being clouded by cocaine-snorting and an excessive intake of LSD) - is that hippies were (are) the garbage-residue of capitalism. This is an incredible irony. Only in a successfully-functioning capitalist system can you find that species called "hippie"; a spoiled, ungrateful, and selfish bunch of middle and upper-middle class losers.

The film itself seems to go on forever. Antonioni takes his sweet time with getting on with it, while including overlong scenes of pointlessness, with a high dullness factor. His attempts at symbolism are annoying and trite. His statements are highly dubious, at best. This film is Antonioni's way of saying that violent revolution is the solution. And this is what we get from an old, saturated, filthy-rich, fat film-maker who lives in villas and dines in the best French and Italian restaurants.

I don't remember seeing any major Western movie about the Tiananmen massacre of thousands of students in China. But when one Western student gets shot for waving Che Guevara's face into all our faces, we get ten major films about it at once. I suppose this means that a Chinese life is worth a thousand times less than a Western one – at least to the left-wing hypocrites who infest movies.

If you're a Marxist neo-hippy and disliked this awful review, please klick "NO" below.