ZABRISKIE POINT (director/writer: Michelangelo Antonioni; screenwriters: Fred Gardner/Tonino Guerra/Clare Peploe/Sam Shepard; cinematographer: Alfio Contini; cast:Mark Frechette (Mark), Daria Halprin (Daria), Rod Taylor (Lee Allen), Paul Fix (Cafe Owner), Kathleen Cleaver (Kathleen), 1970)
Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz
Set in the Los Angeles of the late 1960s, this is Antonioni's only foray turned into an American film. He becomes the foreign outsider who focuses his sights on the radical protests taking place at that time on the college campuses. His rambling story is a near-masterpiece of vision and great perception of what was taking place, as it let go of plot development and storyline, and instead captured the moods, atmosphere, and insights making up the changing landscape in America's unprecedented time of political unrest and social change, as the mostly white middle-class student joined with the black militants demanding that the system change.
Mark Frechette is college drop-out, now operating a fork-lift truck for a living, who still rooms with his radical college mates. He is bored with the rhetoric from his white middle-class protestors, who are seen with black militants at a joint meeting, as they are being chastised and lectured to by them, told to expect violence from the police as they are leading a demonstration against their local college. Kathleen Cleaver, seen as she is with her recognizable Afro and militant dialogue, basically plays herself, telling the white students that blacks are always ready for revolution because they have been suppressed for so long.
Out of boredom, wanting to do something revolutionary, Mark gets ready for the college protests by purchasing a gun from a gunshop, forgoing the usual waiting period required by the state by telling the gun seller he lives in a borderline neighborhood and needs the gun for protection.
As the tensions run high in the city over the protests, the media is mainly looking for the sensational story and not interested in telling the student's side, and the police are shown as being hostile to the demonstrators. Mark watches as the police tear gas the college administration building and he uses the opportunity to probably shoot a cop (if I was asked to be a witness, I couldn't tell for sure if he actually was the one who killed the cop). Anyway, he is told by his roommates that his friends identified him as the shooter by watching the TV news.
On-the-run, Mark decides to take a small plane and he goes aimlessly over Death Valley, where he spots a car on the deserted road driven by a very attractive hippie, Daria Halprin. She is the lover and secretary for Lee Allen (Rod), a big real-estate developer, who runs a firm that is exploiting the desert for their developments. He is so taken with her whimsical nature and beauty that he will leave the bargaining table in the middle of a 40 million dollar deal, just to speak casually with her on the phone.
When Mark's plane runs out of gas, she agrees to give him a lift to the next gas station, but they stop off at a deserted tourist place called Zabriskie Point, an area of ancient lake beds. Here they flirt with each other, get to know something about the other and frolic in the sand dunes, making love as the camera also shows some other imaginary couples making love.
She is into smoking grass, listening to rock music, and staying away from the heaviness of reality, instead she survives by using her imagination. He is a realist, not even willing to smoke grass, but stating that he believes that violence is needed to let others know who the enemy is and then they will be able to get rid of them. She asks, then what do you do, count up who killed more enemies and the winner gets the last shot!
Mark decides his joy ride is over and will take the plane back to L.A. after gassing up and painting the plane in absurd colors, a childish protest against the rich, even writing on the plane's side, "Suck Bucks." Daria tells him to just leave the plane here and she'll drive him back to Phoenix, but he says he likes risks and feels responsible to take it back.
Once landing it in the airport he stole it from, the police surround him and unnecessarily shoot him. When Daria hears this on the radio, she is visibly shook up, as she enters the bourgeois dream-house of her boss's firm, with all the luxuries and amenities, including an ornate pool. She decides that she can't stay here anymore and sneaks away from her capitalist pig lover, all-the-time picturing the luxury ranch house being blown to bits, with all the consumer products in it, such as refrigerators, TV's, air-conditioners, being blown-up. It is all in her head, and she rides away from there with a smile on her face. The explosions take place in slow-motion and Pink Floyd's "Careful with That Axe, Eugene" plays as the products of commercialization go floating by.
Antonioni wanted to make a film that visually shows that it is a change of attitude inside your head that changes the system and not violence. That if you can't change yourself and are still caught in the consumerism trap, you can't change the way society is driven, you will only change the surface of things. Reality is inside your head. It is not by killing off your enemies that you accomplish your aims, but by getting your act together so that you are not part of the problem. It is up to you to make the world a better place to live.
There was one other particular scene that got my attention, when Daria arrives in an Arizona desert town that she doesn't even know the name of, a real nobody place, coming there to meet a friend of hers from L.A. who told her it is a great place for meditation. But when inside the local cafe and bar, the group of emotionally disturbed kids her friend brought here from L.A. are seen running around unsupervised and they break the bar window. When she confronts them, they pinch her ass, while her great meditator friend is nowhere to be found. She promptly takes off, as Antonioni is sending a message that if you think you can escape from the world and your responsibilities by retreating from it, you are mistaken, you only make matters worst.
The film originally garnered bad reviews in general and ended up being a commercial failure, subjecting the director to some unfairly harsh criticism. But it was probably the most perceptive film made about that turbulent time, and it is not outdated like most of the critically praised films of that particular genre are when viewed today.
The nonprofessional actor stars lived in a Boston commune together, then Daria briefly got married to Dennis Hopper. Mark went to prison for robbing a bank, which he says was for political reasons. He died in a 1975 prison accident.
REVIEWED ON 1/6/2000 GRADE: A
Dennis Schwartz: "Ozus' World Movie Reviews"
http://www.sover.net/~ozus
ozus@sover.net
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