Jackson Booth-Millard I found this title listed in the book 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die, but I also recall seeing it once in the Wikipedia list of films considered the worst, but I always going to watch it, directed by Michelangelo Antonioni (L'Avventura, La Notte, L'Eclisse, Blowup). Basically set in the late 1960s, rebellious student Mark (Mark Frechette) is arrested after trying to bail out his roommate, following a mass arrest at the campus during a protest, after he is released he and friend buy firearms from a Los Angeles gun shop, claiming it is for "self-defence". In a downtown Los Angeles office building, successful real estate executive Lee Allen (The Birds' Rod Taylor) is reviewing a commercial for Sunny Dunes, a new resort-like real estate development in the desert. After getting away from a bloody campus confrontation between students and police, Mark walks to Hawthorne Municipal Airport, steals a small Cessna 210 aircraft and flies into the desert. Meanwhile, pot-smoking secretary Daria (Daria Halprin) is driving across the desert towards Phoenix in a 1950s-era Buick automobile to meet her boss Lee, he may or may not also be her lover. Daria is spied from the air by Mark, he flies inches above her car, before she gets out and he wizzes over her lying in the sand, he throws his T-shirt out the window for her to pick up, Daria goes from upset to curious. The meet later, Mark asks Daria for a lift so he can buy fuel for the plane, the two wander to Zabriskie Point, the lowest point of the United States, there they make love, and the site's geological formations seem to have a dusty orgy. Later, a suspicious California patrolman questions Daria, Mark hides behind a portable toilet holding a gun, he aims his weapon, but Daria blocks him, allowing the policeman to drive away. Daria asks Mark if he killed a policeman who was killed in Los Angeles, he admits he wanted to kill him, but someone else shot the officer. Mark and Daria return to the stolen aircraft, painting it with politically-charged slogans and psychedelic colours, Daria begs him to come with her and leave the plane, but Mark is intent on returning it and taking the risks that it involves. Mark flies back to Los Angeles and lands the plane at the airport in Hawthorne, police and radio and television reporters are waiting there for him, he tries to turn the aircraft around across the grass, but Mark is shot to death by one of the policemen. Daria learns about Mark's death on the car radio, she sees three affluent women sunning themselves and chatting around the swimming pool at Lee's desert home, Daria grieves for Mark drenching herself in the house's architectural waterfall. Lee is deeply immersed in the business meeting about the Sunny Dunes development, he spots Daria when taking a break and happily greets her, she finds there is a guest room ready for her, but briefly opening the door, she shuts it again. Daria leaves the house silently and drives away but stops to get out of the car and look back at the house, in her own imagination Daria sees the house repeatedly being blown apart in billows of flames with household items going up with it, she then continues her journey. Also starring Paul Fix as Roadhouse owner, G. D. Spradlin as Lee's associate, Bill Garaway as Morty and Kathleen Cleaver as Kathleen, and an uncredited Harrison Ford as an arrested student. This film has been described as "the worst film ever made by a director of genius", it was an overwhelming commercial failure, and has been panned by critics, no wonder it has gained a cult audience. I don't think it is that bad of a movie, it shows radical activism, rebellion against society, and the breakthrough of modern youth during this significant era, there are certainly a few memorable moments, from the plane flying to the carefree sandy sex scenes, from the road movie vibe to the psychedelic painting of a plane, overall it is a relatively interesting drama. Worth watching!

dgz78 Being a teenager back when this film came out, I guess I would have a different opinion if I had watched back then. Unfortunately, it stayed on my 'I've got to see this movie some day' list until I was long past part of the intended audience.Today it feels like it's a joke about American society. The student revolutionaries could spend all their time arguing about whether their school is bad or if it is bad and mean. The scary thing is a lot of those students now can only find jobs in those schools or some other government entity where productivity is unimportant.But as much as I have enjoyed watching Blow-Up over the years, it at least had a point to the story. I've had a lot of balloons that have had better points. Antonioni must think he was the first to discover there is a generation gap and the young are just free and easy with life and love. The photography and the music are the best things about ZP - it sure isn't the acting. Antonioni intentionally hired amateurs for the leads and it shows. Even the stereotypes he hired had trouble playing the stereotypes they actually were. Evidently from their minuscule list of credits no one else saw any acting ability in them either.I could have used more Pink Floyd and Grateful Dead and all other music. There could have been an extended version of Dark Star over all the shots of Daria driving in the desert and it would have made the tedious parts bearable.If you have a couple hours with nothing absolutely nothing to do take the time to watch what Antonioni saw happening in America at the end of the '60s. But know you have been warned.

bababear I'd heard a lot about this movie and finally got a chance to watch it tonight. It was, well, different.The screenplay by five writers (that's a bad sign right there) picks up themes and drops them to go on to something else. It's as the creative team collectively had AD/HD. Oh, there's something shiny. Let's walk over and pick it up.The action starts in Los Angeles with a well realized meeting of a campus revolutionary group. Because of the film's being forty-six years old, these scenes carry their own irony: I wondered how many of those committed rebels from 1970 would turn out to be Realtors and salespeople and advertising executives ten years later.A self-absorbed man named Mark is marginally involved with the group. He's a dropout who had rewired the university's computer system to enroll all Engineering majors in Art classes. He's on the scene of a riot where a policeman is shot and he flees, eventually stealing an airplane and heading for the desert.In the second act he meets up with Daria, a secretary who's an Anthropology major. They meet cute: he terrorizes her on the highway as she'd driving through the California desert. She's gone there to look for a friend who's working with emotionally disturbed children (at one point I thought I was watching CHILDREN OF THE CORN) but like too many other dramatic themes that got lost too.In the desert they drop acid, which prompts an endless scene of people covered in sand having sex. This grinds the narrative to a halt, therefore giving audiences an opportunity to get popcorn and a drink without missing anything, they same way that Mexican horror movies often have gratuitous musical numbers in the second act.Mark takes the stolen plane back to Los Angeles, with predictable results.In the mercifully short third act Daria goes to her boss's house, then leaves and imagines first the house blowing up and then repeated shots of clothing, appliances, and a loaf of Wonder bread blowing up. I'm sure that those few audiences who saw the film in theaters were convulsed with laughter during this scene. Fortunately, her imagination is limited so she drives away at sunset.Neither of the leads had acting experience, and it shows. There is no consistency to their performances. And, giving how poorly written the film is, I can't blame them. Neither had further careers in film, which surprised no one. Other characters are very uneven. Some perform naturally, others sound as if they had just that moment been handed the script and asked to read it aloud.The director's native language is Italian. At the end of the scene if the actors didn't run into each other, fall down, or belch while facing the camera, it seems he would announce that this was a final take, "Cut and print!" What's puzzling is that the film cost $7 million in 1970 dollars, about $44 million in 2016 dollars. But it looks and sounds cheap. If you didn't see the opening titles to know it was from MGM and directed by Antonioni, a viewer would figure it was one of those low budget action/adventure movies that Roger Corman cranked out at New World Pictures.There are the special effects at the end, of course. And performance rights to songs by the Rolling Stones, Grateful Dead, Roy Orbison, and many other rock legends. But this wasn't adapted from a best seller, and there are no box office names except for Rod Taylor, who plays Daria's boss.In defense of the film, though, it was cut and recut over and over by MGM and came very close to never being released. I suspect that somewhere in a vault at the studio is enough unused footage to assemble twenty different cuts of the film that are completely different from each other.Antonioni's film that's known by the public is his masterpiece BLOW-UP, which had no explosions. Here he brings us Zabriskie Point, which has explosions but no point.

Armand it could be, in same measure, an experiment and a masterpiece. a honest confession and a manifesto. at first sigh, picture of a generation sense search, it is not only a legendary title or a revolutionary piece but its importance remains in its universal message. a film about love, hate and romanticism out of classical stereotypes. a couple and a project. revolution as puzzle. and purity as usual victim. the mixture between emotion and cold reflection is its basic virtue. a film about "70's spirit who can be about present days. because the scene,the precision of Antonion to reflect essence of a sick society is the same. only the desert becomes to far.