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List Price: $19.98 | | Label: Warner Home Video
Salesrank: 13620
Released: May 26, 2009 |
| Our Price: $10.96 |
| Used Price: $13.19 |
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MPAA Rating: R (Restricted)
Media: DVD |
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Editorial Review:
In a story of youthful rebellion, a young man steals an airplane and flies over the desert, where he meets a young woman and falls in love.
Description of Zabriskie Point:
As a postcard from a bygone era, Michelangelo Antonioni's sole American movie is amazing to look at. This was the Italian director's first film since his English-language breakthrough Blowup (1966), which had been a masterpiece that captivated general and art-house audiences alike. Expectations understandably ran high, and as a visual experience Zabriskie Point delivered. Here was this foreigner's eye, among the most distinctive in world cinema, looking at city and desert, streets and backroads, office towers, mini-marts, police cars, airfields, and nonstop signage--the textures of U.S. life transliterated into something alien and askew. Revisited decades later, that's the aspect of Zabriskie Point that comes fascinatingly to the fore.
>Not so in 1970. Zabriskie Point bombed with critics and audiences because Antonioni proved to be way out of his depth in attempting to relate to American youth and their inchoate revolution--something underscored by the irredeemably amateurish performances of unknowns Daria Halprin and Mark Frechette in the leading roles. The story, such as it is, takes its impetus from a student strike during which a police officer is shot. Whether Mark fired the shot is unclear (the editing at the crucial moment recalls the cop-killing in Godard's Breathless), but he splits. His flight into the desert in a stolen plane will bring him together with Daria, who's driving to Phoenix to meet her employer and possible lover, a real-estate developer (Rod Taylor). What transpires between these two young people has to be seen to be believed, except that it can't be believed. Nevertheless, the events of the next-to-last reel license Antonioni to tee up an extraordinary finale--a hallucinatory apocalypse in which American materialism gets what's coming to it, and the desert becomes a sunset bloom.
It's a measure of the film's miscalculation that, although the Taylor character is clearly meant to personify capitalist rapacity, the actor's professionalism is such a relief from the vapid leads that the guy comes off as sympathetic. There are also brief, welcome turns by G.D. Spradlin (future deliverer of the Apocalypse Now line "Terminate with extreme prejudice") and veteran Western player Paul Fix, whose Death Valley café becomes the scene of an astonishing Edward Hopper moment. Gold is where you find it. --Richard T. Jameson
Also on the DVD
The lone extra is the original trailer, with which, like the title song, we can only hope Antonioni had nothing to do. Over images of the prehistoric wilderness that gives the film its name, an adult voice salaciously intones: "Zabriskie Point ... where a boy ... and a girl ... meet ... and touch ... and blow their minds." Cue rock music and mass love-in. --Richard T. Jameson
Zabriskie Point Reviews:
1970 Antonioni film 
2009-09-17 - To me it seemed as if parts of the film were influenced by Easy Rider, which is a good thing, for instance, the editing, the use of popular music, and the camera work, as well as focusing upon the youth movement of the times. The characters in the film though, appeared to be one dimensional, lacking depth, and are merely taken at face value, what they represented, symbolically, the counter-culture vs. the establishment. On an artistic level the film seemed more successful, than as a Hollywood form of entertainment, for reasons previously pointed out, along with, the fact that the narrative structure of the film was sparse.
Zabriskie Pointless 
2009-08-03 - In a word: STUPID STUPID STUPID STUPID. As a time capsule, this movie documents just how pathetic the '60s were and what complete idiots the hippie-boomers were (and still are). Otherwise, it's a pointless waste of celluloid (and DVD shelf space).
What a piece of dreck.
2009-07-31 - I knew I would hate this film right from its opening scene: a bunch of spoiled and obnoxious militants rant against the fascist establishment rather than actually contributing to society by becoming accountants or something. The movie ends with an angsty, privileged white girl who actually has the gall to blow up some real-estate in development as a "statement" against something or other. Skip this piece of dreck and read Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged" instead.
Revolutionary Film 
2009-07-20 - This movie is a trip right to the Sixties. What is particularly good besides the sex scene is the campus dialogue that goes on in the beginning. This scene features non other than Kathleen Cleaver who was Eldridge Cleaver's wife. She seems to be playing herself during that period. Also good music especially, the Rolling Stones song called "You've got the silver".
zabriskie point
2009-07-05 - zabriskie point is a story of American corporate culture while also a love story of Daria and Mark two beautiful, free spirits who meet and connect with tragedy. Daria's apocalyptic vision finale is stunning. Set to amazing soundtrack featuring Pink floyd and Grateful dead. Cinema that leaves you with lasting thoughts.
