Film: "Zabriskie Point" (1970).
A muddled, anti-capitalist movie from Michelangelo Antonioni, culminating in a
closing sequence so brilliant it almost makes up fior everything that has gone
before. This was his first (and last) American film after a distinguished
career in Italy in the 1960s. It zeroes in on the then contemprary climate of
student unrest, with Mark Frechette unjustly accused of killing a cop during
a college riot. Stealing an aeroplane, he flees into the desert, meets secretary
Daria Halprin and makes love to her at Zabriskie Point, a tourist attraction in
California's Death Valley, before giving himself up. The script then loses its
way, with the leading lady caught up in a relationship with local tycoon Don
Taylor. But Zabriskie Point the location is merely a literary device, a means
of bridging the realistic scenes of student rebellion with the powerful and
unexpected finale. The acting is wretched, the script (on which five people,
including playwright Sam Shepherd, worked) banal, yet it looks tremendous. It's
the Antonioni film that wears least well, but it offers memorable images plus
that inspired closing scene, a nail in the coffin of consumerism.
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