Zabriskie Point is the most intricate of all [Antonioni's] films to date. If there is a political point to be dredged from the student phase at the beginning, it is incidental to the major theme of individuality at bay. Both Mark and Daria are opposed to the regimented society that hems them in. He lunges out against it with the clumsiness of the proverbial bull in a china shop, while she is comparatively adjusted and cool….

[The] visual stress in the opening phase of the film, set in Los Angeles, implies a brain-washed society. And this is echoed in the ideas of Daria's current employer, the property developer Mr Allen…. What he had in mind is an environment for a mindless community, seemingly offered a carefree holiday-orientated existence, but in conditions so thoroughly preordained as to obliterate the need to think. (p. 33)

[Our] dislike of the conformity that...