Carefree, AZ
Zabriskie Point (1970)
directed by Michelangelo Antonioni
rating: 2 out of 5 cravats
on DVD from Netflix
There's a part of me that likes that Daria imagines the modern house in Arizona blown to smithereens. The Daria of today would want to live there, but Daria back then prefers the desert. And I actually found the "sand orgy" sequence sort of beautiful, and not at all the awkward posturing that the political conversation at the start of the film led me to expect. When a family pulls up to Zabriskie Point in the wake of all that dusty sex, the blue of the Dodge is startling. They're a likeable group, down to dad's joke that all this empty space would make for a good drive-in.
A documentary about Death Valley wouldn't have any cars in it, but Antonioni sees a visit to the park as inseparable from one's mode of transportation. There is at least half an hour of airplanes and cars in motion, with nowhere to be and only music on the radio. He remains my favorite director for a set of rubber tires. Whatever cultural commentary the terrible script aspires to (I'm looking at you, Sam Shepard), the movie itself is more than content with a pretty girl in an old car who stops to refill her radiator from a bright yellow water tank, and the young man who circles her head in a Cessna for a thrill.
It's interesting that the two co-stars were amateurs and fell in love with one another, and interesting the way that Mark Frechette later died. Daria Halprin married Dennis Hopper, Antonioni made The Passenger, and I think that house outside of Phoenix is now a spa. Once you hit the desert, it doesn't matter.
directed by Michelangelo Antonioni
rating: 2 out of 5 cravats
on DVD from Netflix
There's a part of me that likes that Daria imagines the modern house in Arizona blown to smithereens. The Daria of today would want to live there, but Daria back then prefers the desert. And I actually found the "sand orgy" sequence sort of beautiful, and not at all the awkward posturing that the political conversation at the start of the film led me to expect. When a family pulls up to Zabriskie Point in the wake of all that dusty sex, the blue of the Dodge is startling. They're a likeable group, down to dad's joke that all this empty space would make for a good drive-in.
A documentary about Death Valley wouldn't have any cars in it, but Antonioni sees a visit to the park as inseparable from one's mode of transportation. There is at least half an hour of airplanes and cars in motion, with nowhere to be and only music on the radio. He remains my favorite director for a set of rubber tires. Whatever cultural commentary the terrible script aspires to (I'm looking at you, Sam Shepard), the movie itself is more than content with a pretty girl in an old car who stops to refill her radiator from a bright yellow water tank, and the young man who circles her head in a Cessna for a thrill.
It's interesting that the two co-stars were amateurs and fell in love with one another, and interesting the way that Mark Frechette later died. Daria Halprin married Dennis Hopper, Antonioni made The Passenger, and I think that house outside of Phoenix is now a spa. Once you hit the desert, it doesn't matter.
posted by NPK at 5:39 AM
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