Michelangelo Antonioni
Zabriskie Point

Introduction

I watched this movie at home, taken from my dad and mom's video library. It was on an old VHS that came with a newspaper - "L'Unità" - which, when I was a child, also sold videocassettes.

I decided to review it because I didn't like it, and I have some criticisms to make.

In my opinion, it's better to write about things you don't like than about things you do. The things you like are ours, intimate, and a person might not want to share them on the internet. Those that are not liked, however, can be shared even to understand if I'm wrong.

The plot

Zabriskie Point is a location in the desert far from inhabited centers. In the film's subject, it is the destination of the escape of two young university students from the protest years (late '60s), who arrive there with a small plane to kiss and make love. The gesture marks a recovery of the couple's individuality compared to the masses and poetry, with a fusion between the people and their feelings and the landscape that, seemingly desolate, symbolically indicates the immensity of the prospects of the two young people. Unfortunately, their dream of love and life is shattered by the forces of order, triggering a destructive reaction that is both material and laden with symbolic meanings.

The director

Michelangelo Antonioni was a director born in Ferrara in 1912 and died, after a period of illness, in 2007, having started from neorealism and matured into a cinema rich in formal allusions, more than content and social criticism like neorealism itself. This film, in particular, is the peak of this stylistic evolution: photography and the choice of locations matter more than the story - made up of many silences - which is almost a pretext for depicting the world through images. According to some, in fact, Antonioni's chosen form was indicative of a lost world, without certainties (the so-called poetics of incomprehensibility) where only a kind of omniscient eye matters, that of the director, who, however, is incapable of interacting with his characters, merely framing them in the context in which they move. Others accuse Antonioni of being an empty and cold director, with nothing to say.

Ten reasons why... (Martina's Decalogue)

I saw that those who read my first review on Tolkien criticized this thing about the "scheme." I repeat that I like it because it helps clarify my ideas and also helps the reader understand better what I think. It's something that works even at school, so I decided to use it in life as well.

This movie didn't appeal to me (I must say I was a bit disappointed) because:

1.      the actors are not good or expressive. I understand that they don't have to say many lines, but they have such sad faces (and they didn't make a career, as IMDb says);

2.      the story is very slow and it's not clear what it aims to achieve. I had to find the symbolic interpretation online and in my dad's cinema books: it seems absurd to me that to interpret something I watch, I have to read what others think of the story I saw; it means the message isn't coming across;

3.      it's the work of a person who was already old at the time and, in my opinion, didn't understand the world of young people;

4.      I don't understand the choice of the two kids to go and kiss and do other things precisely at Zabriskie Point: the symbolic interpretation mentioned in the "plot" section seems a bit forced to me, and I don't see a contrast between kissing and protesting;

5.      there's too much malice in the depiction of the police: the reaction of the forces of order towards the protagonists is described in an exaggerated manner. It seems like the director wanted to wink at the young people of that time (without understanding them), and this is not a sign of independent thinking. The youth/good VS police/bad scheme seems a bit outdated to me; it would be time to reverse it to police/good VS youth/bad (as in CSI, or La squadra). It should also be said that the police have done all sorts of things in the past, but we must also forgive;

6.      the setting in the United States seems forced to me. The student protest was also present in Italy and France, and Antonioni could have made the same film in Europe, where there are still beautiful places to photograph and shoot in;

7.      the ending is convoluted: after the police arrive, the idea of blowing up the luxury house doesn't make much sense. Perhaps a reaction to the reaction? Or the prophecy that young people's protests would end badly? Or a scene that stands alone (it must be said that it is very beautiful to watch, and the music by Jerry Garcia, guitarist of a very popular band of the time called Grateful Dead, is beautiful, as well as the legendary Pink Floyd being included in the soundtrack);

8.      the use of music seems, however, clever to me: the choice of musicians is that of artists of the counterculture of the time, mainly hippies or freaks. But it's not music that makes a film young and for the young, or that describes the young. For example, Kubrick, in the contemporary A Clockwork Orange, makes the opposite choice: classical music for a film that also talks about youth unrest. It's a more intelligent and disorienting choice.

9.      it seems to me a film that fails precisely in what was probably its aim: the portrayal of youth unrest, abstracted into an incident that aims to be exemplary, but in its very developments appears entirely improbable, if not abstruse;

10.   in this phase of his career, Antonioni seems to have entirely moved past the central intuition of neorealism, but also his early cinema (Il grido, but also L'avventura). The man, the individual, is no longer the center of the story, but a pretext for a description, perhaps even a poetics, through images and narrative ellipses (not eclipses!). But at this point, it might be better to focus on documentaries, in my opinion.

Rating

In my opinion, it's about a 2/5. It would be 5/5 if it were a documentary, a music video, or a commercial for strange places like Zabriskie Point. But it's a film by a director who has done better things.

My advice is to watch something else: on student protests, "The Strawberry Statement." Of Antonioni's work, I prefer "L'avventura," boring but beautiful for the locations and because in that film Monica Vitti doesn't go unnoticed.