Review of Zabriskie Point (1970) by Ryan C — 15 Apr 2014

Zabriskie Point is an extremely beautiful mess of a film. Meant to encapsulate Michelangelo Antonioni's transition into subversive English-language critiques of youth culture as evidenced by "Blow-Up" (still a very, very odd film for odd people), this film didn't exactly do good. It's what some people would consider a total mess - the acting is student-actor-level, the dialogue is a little too pretentious even for a fan of pretension like me, and Antonioni suffers in the same way R. Crumb does in that they cannot see the beauty of overindustrialized suburbia - but at the same time, it did give people an excellent soundtrack by Pink Floyd, John Fahey, Jerry Garcia, and so on.

A lot of what makes Zabriskie Point a mess is its lack of direction. It's very much evidenced at the beginning - Antonioni aims for a more mockumentary feel with the relaxed Godard-esque capture of the youth meeting - and at the middle when the two protagonists rendezvous. Which is it, man? Quasi-documentary or psychedelic romance? The answer is, "Neither." It's first and foremost a road movie. Even in the beginning, it has a very alienating sense of aimlessness that films like Easy Rider manage to communicate. The aim of the trip that the audience is on is that there is no aim - you are on for however long the ride needs to be. You are hooked by the beautiful chaos around you - the deaths, the counterculture straight out of a fictional interpretation of Medium Cool - and you ride along as Antonioni points at specific places in America and says, "Hey, guys! There's something a bit wrong with this!".

I want films to be this bold. However, films cannot be this bold since you're gonna get people who screw up big time like Antonioni. But this isn't an "A for effort/A for ariginality" type of deal - this is the work of a master who knows what he's doing and deliberately does so in order to make a wider point. The stilted philosophy and acting? Guess what was the norm in 1960s America! The plastic culture and ridiculous standards of living? Guess what was the norm in regular culture in 1969! The youth movements that seem extremely splintered and focus entirely on violence as a means to solve every feasible problem? Sounds just like the mindset of a teenager after the Democratic National Convention in 1968. Antonioni isn't trying to glamorize America or the youth here - he's screaming at us in a way similar to Blow-Up, "Hey, guys! You need serious help! You can't go on being like this forever!".

And how do I know this? How am I sure that I have finally interpreted Zabriskie Point in the right way? Because it is eerily similar to 2013-14. People using stand-your-ground to justify acts of violence and immunity from criminal charges. Youth being discriminated over assumptions and yet being so stubborn that they will get themselves killed. Suburbia becoming more and more structured. We are in need of a desert convergence where we all get together in Zabriskie Point and finally get to know one another's bare psyche. All to the music of Jerry Garcia, may I add. But yeah, Zabriskie Point is still a pretty contemporary film - dated in some ways, but very contemporary. Scarily contemporary.