Reviews of Zabriskie Point
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actingoutpolitics
30Nov10
Michelangelo Antonioni’s “Zabriskie Point” (ZP) – Sociology of American Humanism and Anti-humanism through Reflective Visual Images Even moral and psychological ugliness is elevated by Antonioni’s art (with its orientation on truth and the ethical impossibility to scapegoat what is a part of reality) into a monumental forms of the objective historical process. Protagonists, with all their personal uniqueness, signify certain socio-political configurations. For Antonioni people can identify with good and yet create evil but they can never personify good or evil – he objectifies their prejudices and behavior and dissolves the human emotions into his epical vision of societal life. Good and evil co-exist, more – fused with one another inside the very system of living, the very structure of social relations. It is this truth of the evil incarnated into the very flesh of our norms, values and habits (which we never consider as evil), and of good (which is never too proud of itself and is recognized by us as in sympathy and empathy) – Antonioni’s camera is especially interested in his films including ZP. But when evil is reduced into concrete categories of people, and good into what is written on the banners and in commercial advertisements – it means, we live where civilized and democratic life is barely possible. It is coming of this universe Antonioni demonstrates in his ZP. Daria/Mark is a universal archetype of the potential for love in human life that is destroyed by the indifference and violence of the very organization of life in society toward youth and love. Mark is scapegoated by a system that is only interested in accumulating money power. But Daria is saved from becoming a (passive) conformist of this power – by the highest possible cost – the death of her beloved. By watching the film we trace in detail how American democracy produces/destroys its own Romeo and Juliette. Please, visit: www.actingoutpolitics.com to read about Antonioni’s film (with analysis of shots), and other articles on films by Godard, Resnais, Bergman, Bunuel, Kurosawa, Bresson, Pasolini, Cavani, Bertolucci, Alain Tanner, and Rainer Werner Fassbinder.
By Victor Enyutin
Jimmy Cline
28Aug09
Well, one can never accuse Antonioni’s films of lacking any aesthetic playfulness. And Zabriskie Point is a gorgeous film, finding inspiration in the urban alienation of Los Angeles, Antonioni explores this new architectural environment as fluidly as he did with Rome.
It’s more the political and social subject matter that hurts the film, and time has not been kind to its central message. There is no subtlety whatsoever in this story. And when it’s ponderous, the scenes are occupied by dated idealism and retarded sensuality. One could chalk it up to a collaborative screenplay, or the fact that the screenplay is very talkative at all. The dialogue is just garbage, and the actors seem confused, especially Daria Halprin who is completely off. Never before has a woman in an Antonioni film seemed so irrelevant and wooden.
Not that later Antonioni is all that bad. Two years later, he would follow this up with The Passenger, which was a remarkable achievment, also a film in which he cast a better American actor. Godard was really more well suited to tackle this sort of film. He may have been dogmatic in those years, but his political films still had the sort of oddball conviction that didn’t make one want to roll their eyes at each and every sound of the word “revolution”.
- Currently 2.0/5 Stars.