Zabriskie Point poster & wallpaper

Mark Frechette, Daria Halprin, Paul Fix

An epic portrait of late Sixties America, as seen through the portrayal of two of its children: anthropology student Daria (who's helping a property developer build a village in the Los Angeles desert...( read more  read more... )) and dropout Mark (who's wanted by the authorities for allegedly killing a policeman during a student riot)...

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78% liked it

9,877 ratings

Critics

61% liked it

18 critics

R, 1 hr. 52 min.

Directed by: Michelangelo Antonioni

Release Date: February 9, 1970

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DVD Release Date: May 26, 2009

Stats: 323 reviews

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Flixster Reviews (323)

  • littlecharmer1959
    June 24, 2008
    littlecharmer1959
    Was a commercial failure but in it's defence it has beautiful scenery and an amazing ending.
  • jenn1984106
    November 30, 2009
    jenn1984106
    Really well filmed flick, very weird but really good acting.
  • vertigoo
    August 27, 2009
    vertigoo
    ...( read more)xster.com">Flixster - Share Movies
  • michaelcorleone
    August 18, 2009
    michaelcorleone
    Michelangelo Antonioni's approach to this film is challenging but deliberate, and anyone willing to embrace its strangeness will find something to admire in his vision. Poetic in execution and visually inventive, it is a picture of undeniably high production value with thought-pr...( read more)ovoking aftereffects. I found it to be mesmerizing, but its borderline surrealism and narrative rule-breaking will be off-putting for a lot of people. This is a film I will revisit.
  • Ghw12158
    July 7, 2009
    Ghw12158
    a little dated now but good
  • heybarbara
    July 5, 2009
    heybarbara
    The often misunderstood Zabriskie Point is Antonioni's political film, Antonioni's American film. Stylistically, it follows suit after "Blow-Up", meaning that the pace is faster than the previous epics, though certainly no less idiosyncratic.
    Basically the common mistake is that ...( read more)the film glorifies the hippie generation. Not so.
    The two protagonists come from vastly different environments. Mark from the "rebel" youths, Daria from an estate agency corporation. But in true Antonioni fashion, they are both alienated, both trying to escape their surroundings. Mark leaves a meeting of rebel students and Black Panthers disappointed with the verbose empty rhetoric, while Daria keeps uneasily being on the move with her car.
    Antionioni, the master director, after portraying the rebelling youth as confused and shallow, then moves to the city. An environment saturated by corporatism, billboard advertisements, meaninglessness, that has to keep expanding to accommodate the similar expansion of the population, generating a profit at the same time. It is this environment that the two protagonists escape from, though it seems mostly out of coincidence.
    Indeed, when Daria stops by a small village in the outskirts of the desert, the environment is just as suffocating, and the people just as lost cases, best exemplified by an old boxing champion, now reduced to a shadow of himself, sitting around drinking and smoking and talking nonsense. A stunning melancholy sequence, made even more powerful with the inclusion of some half wild children living around, brought in by some "benefactor" but "destroying a genuine piece of American history". In a not-so-obscure symbolism, there is Antonioni's opinion on the hippies. Just a half-positive glimpse in the canvas of human alienation.
    And then there is the desert, the landscape used to devastating effect, by turns pure and terrifying, primeval, wild and dead. The sequence where the two protagonists make love, "joined" in fantasy by the "flower" generation reflects the similar sequence in "Red Desert", where Giuliana tells her son a story. It is a colorful intermission in a colorless landscape. A vivid half-fantasy in a suffocating reality.
    The ending probably belongs to the pantheon of great endings in cinema, the Western civilization blown to pieces. A catharsis, an exorcism.
    Antionioni's two "international" films (the British "Blow-Up" and the American "Zabriskie Point") are lesser efforts than the previous masterpieces, but that is largely because of the faster pace and the inevitably contrived settings (swinging London, flower-power America). But when it comes down to it, it's clear he hasn't lost the edge.
  • FlyingSolo2009
    June 18, 2009
    FlyingSolo2009
    I see no reason for me to ever watch this.
  • hiversky
    February 6, 2009
    hiversky
    my stars are -only- for TEH EXPLOSION! stunning*
  • NoirChick
    August 23, 2008
    NoirChick
    Interesting but dated.
  • pantalla9
    July 15, 2008
    pantalla9
    Con Zabriskie Point (1970) Michelangelo Antonioni tuvo su debut en el cine estadounidense, y lo hizo de una forma tan provocadora y crítica, que la película terminó siendo pobremente recibida en su momento por el público norteamericano. El reflejo que hacía de la juventud de los ...( read more)E.U. era desolador. Según el discurso planteado en el filme, la juventud era víctima del sistema y de la brutalidad policiaca, pero también es el retrato de una juventud nihilista, rebelde e impetuosa.

    El título alude a una zona del desierto de Arizona, al que llegan Mark (Mark Frechette), joven universitario y Daria (Daria Halprin), una secretaria que labora en el ramo de la construcción. Ambos buscan, de alguna forma, romper con lo establecido, ir en contra del sistema. En Zabriskie Point (zona en la que dicen había varios ríos en la prehistoria) se enamoran en una escena delirante, en la que coinciden con otros seres que parecen producto de algún espejismo o alucinación.

    Antonioni concluía su obra con las fantasías violentas y terroristas de Daria, en esa explosión filmada desde distintos ángulos y que parece interminable, para dar lugar a una música tranquila poco después. Zabriskie Point es una obra de transición en la carrera fílmica del fallecido Antonioni, no tanto temáticamente, sino desde un punto de vista formal y crítico a los E.U.
    Más en http://pantallanueve.blogspot.com

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Critic Reviews

May 27, 2009
Armond White, The New York Press

Almost 40 years later, Zabriskie Point exists to teach us more exact and sensitive perceptions about a cultural moment that its original audience was too close to appropriately observe. full review

October 23, 2004
Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times

Antonioni has no feeling for young people...He has tried to make a serious movie and hasn't even achieved a beach-party level of insight. full review

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Zabriskie Point Trivia

  • Which film by Michelangelo Antonioni featured music by Pink Floyd?  Answer »
  • Which Italian filmmaker directed the American movie Zabriskie Point?  Answer »
  • Which of these films ends with the most spectacular explosion scene?   Answer »
  • Harrison Ford fans know that his scenes were cut from this film. But he can still be seen; if you look real quick, in the jail scene, you will see him standing up against the back wall right by the door.   Answer »
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