Free love.
At the height of the American
counterculture scene, a certain auteur named Michelangelo Antonioni, because of
contractual obligations with producer Carlo Ponti and MGM, has set out to
create "Zabriskie Point", an anti-consumerist film about the tattered
fabrics of late '60s Americana. As we all know, the film, after being a
critical and commercial disaster upon its initial release, has since amassed,
among viewers, a silent cult following.
For a film about
counterculture (or, to a certain extent, even entirely counter-American), such
360-degree turn in terms of audience perception is just rebelliously perfect.
In a way, it's as if the film, after being initially misunderstood, has emerged
victorious against an improbable adversary. Antonioni, an artistic outsider merely
dipping his fingers in a culture he does not fully understand, is an image of
elegant audacity. But because of his perennially indifferent approach to
emotions and a tad too reserved an execution, "Zabriskie Point" does
not quite reach the utmost potential it most certainly has.
Nevertheless, the film, for
what it is worth both in the context of American culture and in the context of
Antonioni's pulse as a filmmaker, is still quite a unique triumph. In a
tumultuous time when demonstrations and cries of protests were brash and
recklessly loud, "Zabriskie Point" is a film of quiet anger. And in
the pages of Antonioni's cinematic play book, this is a most definitive
approach.
Depending highly on symbolic
visual manifestations (the imagined mass orgy representing sexual liberation;
the film's destruction of consumerist products captured in slow-motion) rather
than on obvious imagery and contrived scenarios, the film feels fresh and,
typical to Antonioni, alien.
For the record,
"Zabriskie Point" is never the definitive, all-American counterculture
film. Instead, what the film actually represents, on Antonioni's part, is something
personal and culturally detached. This is, after all, Antonioni's sarcastic
love poem to America. By often framing his characters in front of commercial
billboards displaying sandwich spread products and corporation names,
Michaelangelo Antonioni was able to enforce his critique of the American 'way'
without looking forced and too satirical. So "Zabriskie Point", in a
way, is less a film than it is a state of mind.
Typical to Antonioni's thematic
style, the film wallows less on the nuances of humanity but more on why people
are slowly losing it. In this film's case, 'capitalism' and 'mass consumerism'
are the main culprits. But before everything goes too far, I do not think that
the film is entirely political or even completely radical. If anything else,
"Zabriskie Point" purely wallows on the futility of activism. That
after all, making an anti-establishment film is just like writing an
anti-glacier book (kudos to Kurt Vonnegut). Alas, Antonioni's indifferent brand
of cinema, which has earned him both fans and detractors alike throughout the
years, has worked yet again, and quite fascinating at that. Through the use of
on-screen movements rather than words and dialogues, he was able to
convincingly capture the essence of 'free love' during the time.
The great example for this is
the scene when our two protagonists, one a beautiful anthropology student
(riding a car) and the other a rebellious young man (riding a small plane),
show their subtle endearment to each other by way of "North by
Northwest-esque" aerial communication. As touching as it is strange,
Antonioni has made use of two very American manufactured products (the car and
the plane) and turned them into objects that bridge human connection. And then
of course, there's that famous orgy scene, performed with dream-like abandon by
the Open Theatre and beautified by Pink Floyd's transcendental music. Moreover,
the film, by highlighting both the barren landscapes of the empty, titular part
of Death Valley and the hustle and bustle life within the product-emblazoned
corners of mainstream America, is also a textbook exercise in great visual
contrast.
Generally speaking,
"Zabriskie Point's" reputation was indeed highly damaged by the
notoriety of its initial reception. For the film's producer and distributor,
such failure spiels apocalyptic repercussions. But for a director like
Antonioni, a man who is never new to countless boos and walk-outs (the Cannes
screening of "L'avventura" comes to mind), such reaction is not a
blemish to his ego nor his career but a mere solidification of his utterly divisive
and infuriating power as a filmmaker.
For some directors, a picture
of "Zabriskie Point's" quality can already be considered as a
pinnacle. But for Antonioni, it's a mere frolic within the western movie system
that he despises the most, and the joke's on them.
FINAL RATING
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