Zabrinske Point

I am a huge fan of the films of Michelangelo Antonioni, but I have not gotten around to seeing Zabrinske Point (1970). There are several reason for this and no the least of them is that it is routinely dismissed as his worst film and the fact that it focuses on the fading revolutionary youth movement of the 60s, as it was petering out. However, it was referenced in a podcast I recently listened to, "You Must Remember This: Charles Manson's Hollywood," and I recently saw and enjoyed Antonioni's follow up to this film earlier this year, The Passenger, and felt that this might be the right time to see this film. I admit that I am an "auteur-ist" and I value the films of director that I admire to point where I often find their failures more interesting than most mainstream fare. I think Roger Ebert was being unfair when he said, "He has tried to make a serious movie and hasn't even achieved a beach-party level of insight." Alienation and rootlessness are major themes for Antonioni, think L'Eclipse, L'Adventura, Red Desert, etc., and these are also the themes of his follow up, The Passenger, which also takes place in the desert. True, this may not be his finest film, but that does not mean that it is not worthwhile. One of the biggest problems with the film is the casting of amateurs in the leads roles-they lack the ability to be wholly convincing in the film. Aside form the content, I must say that I can appreciate a film for its aesthetic beauty: cinematography, framing, and the blending of the visuals with the soundtrack, which was more popular than the film itself.