ZABRISKIE POINT (1970)
Grade: C
Director: Michelangelo Antonioni
Screenplay: Michelangelo Antonioni
Starring: Mark Frechette, Daria Halprin, Paul Fix, Bill Garaway, Rod Taylor
A red hue illuminates impassioned young faces. The camera pans jerkily from one mug to another, focusing and unfocusing as if the gizmo had an attention disorder. The sound is barely audible; if we listen real closely we can pick up snippets of conversation. Director Antonioni slowly strips away his formalism and cues up the noise, inviting us into a heavy-handed discussion between so-called revolutionaries. A sullen teen stands up proclaiming, "I'm willing to die, but not of boredom", then storms out. The teen is played by Mark Frechette, a real life "revolutionary" who is essentially playing him self, and doing so badly. His visage is perpetually vacant. Beautiful but soulless, Frechette looks like a pissed off model with no runway to strut on. He speaks in a low ebb mumble, with little inflection; he could say "I love you," or "I'll kill you" in the same dull monotone.
The "actor" is not helped by Antonioni's direction. He films ZABRISKIE POINT like an abstract painting. Aesthetes will claim it is brilliant, when really all that is there is a cluster of colors and images, none of which can be deciphered into anything as "deep" as its supporters would argue. Like many formalists, Antonioni doesn't seem to give a flying you know what about his characters. He shoots the story in a de-personalized manner filling the frame with an abundance of gritty beauty at the service of a story that is symbolic at best.
Frechette is a bored outlaw, on the run from the "pigs" after narrowly escaping a campus riot. He hijacks a plane and heads for Death Valley's lowest, hottest area, ZABRISKIE POINT. The reason behind this is never explained; maybe he thought he was Clyde Barrow.
Daria Halprin (another "revolutionary" playing her self) is a dispassionate student, driving her Buick to ZABRISKIE POINT. The "actress" is all-American beautiful, tanned, with tone bronze legs, long amber hair, and luminous smile. Like Frechette she is all surface with nothing underneath. Halprin plays her part as if she were acting in a late 1970's porno, with zero inflection. How will the two vapid hippies meet? It happens in the film's most enjoyably laughable sequence. Frechette buzzes Halprin's Buick with the top of his plane. As this occurs Halprin attempts desperately to make plausible facial expressions, while tonelessly shouting surprised profanity. After she's buzzed several times, the dimwit finally decides to get out of the car, only to duck her head in the sand like a frightened ostrich. Frechette exits the plane to meet his future fling amid the arid, dustiness of Death Valley. They immediately fall for each other; She laughs coyly at his mumbles, and he pats her flirtatiously.
The two beauties frolic amongst the dune-filled desert, turning the desolate region into a carnal playground. Frechette and Halprin begin to make love on the dust, the camera judiciously lulling over bits of skin here and there. The grimy wasteland is suddenly filled with more naked hippies, all playfully writhing in the sun. Antonioni appears to be commenting on the freedom of youth. These kids will screw in the most atrocious conditions. The sequence, which is played under reflective music, is undeniably potent. The scene is dusty and dirty, but so free of inhibitions; it's an exhilarating display of anti-establishment. And it's the only such gambit that really works. As all this transpires nothing is cohering. How does Frechette know how to operate a plane? How does he know that a beautiful woman resides within the Buick? How did all the naked hippies appear? These are simply more pretentious abstractions that probably didn't even make sense to the director, but nonetheless are included to make an allegorical point. And allegorical films rarely work.
ZABRISKIE POINT was one of the many student revolution films released in the 1970 time period. The first to explore these issues was the brilliant semi-documentary, MEDIUM COOL in 1969. That was followed by a flurry of this type (much like the large amount of teen flicks released throughout late 1998 and early 1999): GETTING STRAIGHT, RPM, THE MAGIC OF STANLEY SWEETHEART, DRIVE, HE SAID, THE STRAWBERRY STATEMENT, and THE REVOLUTIONARY. The majority of these avoided the most consequential concerns, and presented the audiences they were pandering to as mostly misguided. Many of the characters often became revolutionaries to get laid, not out of any concerns with politics. Antonioni was obviously interested in something more meaningful; he wanted to create characters and predicaments that were symbolic of the situations going on in contemporary America. And that is what does him in. Everything is about the symbols and anti-nationalism; Antonioni thumbs his nose at the cops, at capitalism and consumerism, and sides with his dopey, but aesthetically beautiful rebels because they symbolize freedom.
Early on, as Mark drives around in a tattered rust-red pickup truck, Antonioni turns his camera on various billboards, trumpeting brand names. He seems to envision America as nothing more than a vat of destructive consumerism, led on by a greedy capitalist government that deserves to be taught a lesson or two (this was dealt with better in the more recent FIGHT CLUB, which saw its rebels more clearly, and without the rose colored glasses Antonioni seems to be peering through).
As the picture comes to a close, Daria stumbles upon a decadent rock-side home, inhabited by yuppies proposing to turn Death Valley into a commercial playground. She stares at the abode with disgust, and we go into her head, watching her fantasies of blowing it to pieces. Particles fly in every direction. A billowy mushroom like cloud rises to the sky. We see the blast again and again, from numerous angles. Other explosions, this time focusing solely on products, such as clothing, T.V's, refrigerators, etc: The evil capitalist businessmen have disappeared into a fiery hell, along with numerous remnants (products) of our culture.
Therein lies this films major flaw. It's not even a film; it's a fascist, two-hour statement. A big middle finger directed at the vulgar American culture.