Customer Reviews

Zabriskie Point - by Michelangelo Antonioni (Import)

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Yes I think its a great film. From the wooden acting of the leads to the Pink Floyd extravaganza at its finale, Zabriskie Point never fails to astound with its incomparable visuals and mastery. Mr Antonioni bravely flings himself on the minefeild of the sixties in America and the results are unlike anything else. Sure to confound most everyone expecting a trite fable, what one receives instead is a blisteringly funny and beautiful comment on a culture too obsessed with consumerism and "success" to notice much besides its own narcicissm. Brilliant.

Director Michelangelo Antonioni's ZABRISKIE POINT is a masterpiece of pure cinema that somehow seems lost to those that despised it as well as to those that embraced it back in 1970. Mark (Mark Frechette) the iconoclast hero is disenchanted with the discussion of college students that we see him congregate with inside a lecture hall somewhere in Los Angeles. The students discuss peace and peace activism conducted and achieved through acts of civil disobedience. Apparently they can't reach a consensus on what means they will use to achieve their end. Convinced they are not willing to take the most extreme of all actions and tired of their rhetoric Mark leaves, buys a gun, nearly kills a cop and impulsively steels an airplane leading him off into the desert. . Simultaneously, we see Daria (Daria Halprin) a very young secretary to land developer Lee Allen (Rod Taylor) decidedly skipping a workday and driving off into the desert in her old Buick. Eventually their paths cross in the desert and they stop their flight at the crest of the Zabriskie Point overlook. For me viewing this film I don't necessarily see the contrast between an American society so decadent, self-centered and materialistic when compared to the two protagonists Mark and Daria. They are unaware that the very thing they are trying to escape, they are in fact part of or even symptomatic of. They look into the barren terrain of the desert and see a beautiful landscape. Yet when they make naked love they are consumed and covered in sand and dust which is symbolically the resulting fruit to the consummation of the act. They are from dust. Their result shall be dust. When Daria first drove into the desert she stopped at a roadside bar frequented by a man long past his physical prime and lost in a singular moment of youthful triumph. Outside the roadside bar Daria found a group of young boys, much younger than her, who equally were lost in their youthful retrogression and idleness. There is no growth in this film for any of its characters, only stagnation. There is no real emergence of a counterculture or any notion of such in this film. There is only the singular culture of man and the limitations of man when compared to the immense and vast majesty, beauty and beguilement of nature. Cinematographer Alfio Contini's color images capture this so vividly. Even the script is more revealing than it appears. We still get the cliched version of a Los Angeles police force. But the business establishment represented by land developer Lee Allen (Rod Taylor) is also seen to be at odds when selling his idealized project. We don't specifically see it, but we get the notion that he is trying to sell a housing project that will incorporate itself into the landscape and become one-with-nature. We see the home that developer Allen has created for himself, a beautiful domicile in the desert, which at first glance seems to go in tandem with this notion of co-existing with nature. But this too can not be in such a vision that Antonioni has created. Equally along the way Mark's fate has prophetically been sealed. Daria's final apocalyptic vision is that of director Antonioni's. No matter what culture man establishes there can never be true harmony. The only true harmony is nature unto itself.

ZABRISKE POINT caused great division in film-going circles and got reviews ranging from: "wannabe classic but artless piece of empty canvas" which was the main-stream, establishment view most critics included, to "revelation of everything that is wrong in the world today (1970)" as viewed by the alternative movement media and people.

This is an image-driven film not a script-driven film, portraying American society & the angst of its youth in the late 1960's, from the viewpoint of a director who ones stated that "A director's job is to see".

There is also an obvious (IMHO) remark on the futile hope of the hippie/civil rights movement's influence in the politics and evolution of America. What Zabriskie Point has to offer in abundance is mood. The deserts, skies, city, and even the faces in close-ups are filmed with the eye of a filmmaker in love with the art of getting things in the frame, bringing us in. The music helps a lot; the score includes Pink Floyd, Kaleidoscope, Grateful Dead. The mood is kind of similar to the moods of Antonioni's other masterpieces, filled with loneliness and desolation (and perhaps the freedom that comes from that).

It's the story of a young man and a young woman. HE (Mark) escapes his existence around the boiling, dangerous campus life going on in the circa late 60's LA area, while SHE (Daria) is sent out from LA to drive to Phoenix for some business meeting. They meet by chance as Mark's plane(!) and Daria's car meet up, and they spend some time together in an existential kind of adventure out in the desert... The use of a mostly non-professional cast conveys a sense of realism (though may seem awkward to some)and seems to be a choice of purpose since those who look most like real actors are subjugated to the roles of the corporate characters.

Since this is a PAL DVD (not playable for some of American NTSC players)and no other edition is listed at Amazon, here is a link you can get NTSC copy of it in 2.35:1 WIDESCREEN format too.

http://shop.vendio.com/cindysboots/item/858848817/index.html

I lived through (and took part in) the student activism and "alternative culture" of the 1960s and the dawn of the 1970s as a student myself (at the University of Massachusetts at Boston, when it still was quartered in and near to Park Square, and at the all-too-explosively alive Kent State University). I remember how we despised the acrid and shallow materialism of the prevailing culture of the "UniTIGHTASStates of AmeriKKKakapeepee" and how we longed to see it all blow up in the faces of the U. S. of A.'s besotted leaders and of the easily deluded citzenry that kept on (and continues) voting them into office. That has happened, at last, with the implosion of the U.S. economy near the beginning of the 21st Century; it is a pity that this collapse, that makes an arrogant nation seethe with poverty and frustration, thus doomed soon to powerlessness, did not occur sooner, to have limited all the victims of AmeriKKKan power and greed between the time of the film, 1970, and that of AmeriKKKa's financially and militarily agonising doom. When Daria, seething with resentment for Mark's needless death (although his carelessness certainly brought it upon him), fantasises that the very symbol of the bourgeois fatuity of AmeriKKKan callousness and vulgarity, the garishly opulent corporate facility (and/or mansion) set high in the desert surface with joltingly sudden violent force explodes to smithereens (with visions of explosions of urban artificialty of many additional sorts added to this), it is a breathtaking vision of justice come to a besotted and unworthy AmeriKKKan culture of excess and greed.

I like the natural touch of the two leading actors using their real first names for their roles. Mark and Daria are the only natural humans in the film, doing what comes naturally to them, even if by thoughtless whimsy (e.g., Mark's theft of the aeroplane) at times as well as by following their feelings to moving expression of what they experience at every moment, leading them, unafraid, to such natural sexuality and joyous revelry in each other, amidst the artificial constructs throughout the film, from which they stand aloof, of crazed student ideological excess, ruthless law enforcement, business and corporate cupidity, and so forth. Some of this may be naive, and doubtlessly is, but it is such a relief to find these two young adults in this film who do not fall into the "cookie-cutter" patterns of AmeriKKKan popular and corporate culture. Alas, Mark in the film dies for daring what he does, from an insistence on following his impulses (for better and for worse) in unfettered freedom, which his society quickly crushes brutally and without immediate sufficient cause (i.e., for him having "borrowed" without permission the aeroplane which he is returning). Mark Frechette himself, whose performance in the role is so edgily convincing (and who was the gay lover of American-Québécois writer, Robert Dôle, also a young hippie during those years, before Antonioni filmed "Zabriskie Point", Dôle having departed by then to live in Québec) was a true counter-cultural rebel who lived out his convictions (none too wisely, but very intensely) and who died all too young for living out what he believed.

This is a wonderful film, redolent (of course!) of its era, but surprisingly relevant for the decades to follow and for present times of such bitterness and of justice that too long has been delayed. A mere account of the film's action simply cannot convey the richness and untrammeled irony of what Antonioni accomplished thereby in this masterpiece of cinema. I wish that the DVD edition that I acquired (or any other one) had included supplementary material and an appreciation of what Antonioni accomplished (but only if it were well done and worthy of him) but I also am simply pleased that this DVD is available at all, being a film, as it is, which does not flinch from judging the crassest kind of modernity that Southern California, Arizona, and the U. S. of A. as a whole, embody and came to represent to the entire world.

I was nervous when it arrived because the dvd package was in Russian. But it's an English speaking movie. My man's favorite and it was new to me. Good film, awesome soundrack!

"Zabriskie Point" is a 60's art film. For starters, the film doesn't have much of a plot. Essentially, two young people briefly hook-up while out in the desert. Mark and Dara make their way to Zabriskie Point, which is actually a popular vista in Death Valley National Park. In film lore, it's the same place where Obi-Wan Kenobi said to Luke Skywalker, "Mos Eisley Spaceport . . . You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy. We must be cautious." I suppose that advice could easily transfer to Michelangelo Antonioni's 1970 film. Out in the badlands, Mark and Dara engage in a group sex scene that borders on soft porn. The ending has lots of explosions that happen for the sake of blowin' stuff up. Quentin Tarantino would be impressed. The lack of character development doesn't help to compensate for the weak plot. The characters and their agenda earn little empathy. Not having any prior acting experience, both Mark Frechette and Daria Halprin gave flat performances. Not only do late 1960's esthetics reverberate in the film's style and approach but also in the content and theme of rebellion. Indeed, the movie is infused with hippy dialogue, campus protests and free love. The strength of "Zabriskie Point" is the music. The soundtrack has always been more popular than the actual film. While the musical quality isn't consistent, it's mostly fantastic. Jerry Garcia's 'love scene' is a highlight. Playing divine solo electric sounds, Garcia's contribution was especially recorded for the film. While the Rolling Stones and the Grateful Dead make worthy additions, the most important music is played by Pink Floyd. In addition to featuring rare and interesting music, the Floyd received a lion's share of screen time. Audiophiles should pick-up the reissue of Zabriskie Point's expanded, two CD soundtrack. Despite the music, "Zabriskie Point" was a financial flop that was ignored by the 'in' crowd and criticized by the establishment. The passage of almost forty years hasn't really changed how the film is appreciated.

While fans of Michelangelo Antonioni should stick with films like "The Passenger," "Zabriskie Point" has undeniable charm given the musical contribution. For this reason, the film deserves to be in-print. Unfortunately, it is only available in this Russian version. This is not a bootleg or Asian knock-off, but an official Warner Brothers sanctioned version. Amazon reviewer "goss" is wrong in describing this as a PAL format DVD. It is in NTSC format and playable in all regions. Heck it even comes with surround sound capabilities. Other than the price, the primary drawback is that the menu is in Russian. Given that Russian subtitles play by default, turning them off can be frustrating. While the film should be avoided if possible, musical completists like myself will inevitably fall to temptation.

First, this DVD is Russian, poor quality and not in wide screen. But it's the only one available so we have to make do. This is the weakest of Antonioni's English language films: "Blow Up" and "The Passenger" are much better. So what went wrong: lousy, amateur actors, multiple script writers (incl Sam Shepard) make a real pig's ear of any pretense of a story and some rabid anti-Americanism. But it's worth seeing for one reason only: the final 10 mins of the desert house blowing up. It's up there with "The Passenger's" final famous tracking shot and the park scenes in Blow Up. Only for die-hards. In the same vein, check out the original "Vanishing Point" and "Electra Glide in Blue"

I had not seen this flick for many years. While it is not a movie legend, it is for me a walk down memory lane as many of the campus scenes were shot on the Contra Costa College, San Pablo, California, campus in 1970. I was one of the extra's and so were many of my freinds. I saw the movie in San Francisco on a hot date with one of the chicks that every guy on campus had the Hots for. I was one of the few that had the courage to ask her out. (She was very much like the leading lady in the film). Another trip down memory lane was riding to Berkeley, California with Michelangelo Antonioni in his new BMW coupe, I never forget how interested he was in my politcal and social comments of the then current society. Funny latter I saw some of the films observation that I had expressed to him on that ride.
This biggest disapointment in getting this Russian copy was that it was in pan & scan and not in letterbox. Because of this will not watch it and am opting to buy an American widescreen version. I would recomend this genre film for those who want to set an slice of what it was like in that exciting turmoil of the late 60's counter culture of which I was an intimate part of starting in 1965.

Jerry Grulkey, President of Students For Peace, Conta Costa College 1966-1970Zabriskie Point - by Michelangelo Antonioni (Import).

Let's talk about this edition, since everybody reading this probably already has an opinion about the movie. This is a Russian edition, with Russian menus, Russian liner notes, and Russian narration (which thankfully can be turned OFF). It is most likely a bootleg, since the focus is pretty significantly fuzzy throughout, and the film is not to my knowledge officially available on DVD due to music clearances. The DVD cuts off at the last scene, before the credits. The "extras" consist solely of four crew bios... written in Russian.

On the good side, the sound is clear, color balance is good, and this was dubbed from a print without any dirt or splices. And it's cheap! Perhaps there's something APPROPRIATE about bootlegging a film about revolutionary politics of the 1960s....

I am well aware that ZABRISKIE POINT is often cited as one of the worst movies ever made, but I could not agree less. Although the two lead actors are at best wooden, and the story highly improbable and maybe even baffling, I found myself completely mesmerized in spite of this.
Visually it is a stunner and the contemporary music lends
a foundation to the film that gives it a certain validation. I think the movie captures the spirit of revolution that permeated the so-called 60s and it does it in a way that is essentially nonverbal. I found this movie haunting and I've watched it many times both in the theatre and at home. It fails, for sure, but it fails gloriously and it does reveal an era gone by in a manner
that few films of the time do. See it but keep your hopes in check.