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Vanishing Point (1971)

Director: Richard Sarafian

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From Time Out Film Guide

Having just driven 1,500 miles non-stop from California to Colorado, Sarafian's sullenly uncommunicative anti-hero pauses long enough to grab a supply of bennies, accept a bet that he won't make it back in 15 hours, and zooms off again. It's a marvellous idea: a strange, obsessive odyssey by a man driven like the lemmings by an inexplicable need to keep on going. Then the script starts explaining in embarrassing memory flashes, the echoes of Easy Rider multiply, bits of mysticism and a blind black DJ called Super-Soul are injected, and the woodenness of both direction and Newman's performance becomes increasingly apparent. Marvellously shot on location by John A Alonzo, though.

Author: TM 0000-00-00 00:00:00

Time Out Film Guide

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User reviews of this film

usman khawaja said...

Posted on Aug 18 2008 09:47 August 18th, 2008Rating: seldom has american cinema made a movie so concious in it's expressive ability to move you emotionally without resorting to antics ,this is for the seventies what citizen kane must have been in 1940s as a true portryal of the american dream .
Superficially a seemingly seething road movie with kowalski as a free soul on a symbolic road trip from denver to frisco being chased by every partol car across 4 states ,worshipped by the common people who laud his ability to rebel yet hunted in the panoramic vistas of the west from colorado to utah ,the movie is dazzling in pacing ,mesmerizing in ingenious editing ,a delight in it's audio soundtrack and yet so representative of the injustice and deception of a whole generation of youthful idealistic americans by the establishment .
the metaphorical rebel car racer ,the fascist traffic cops ,the whole establishment trying to supress an individual's freedom almost crushed my soul and moved me tremendously .
the impact of this movie will stay eternally as it is a real quest for the truth where a disillusioned person is causing an offence without committing an offence as an indication of a true rage .
this a marvel for people who love great cinema in any form as newman expresses the whole phenomena of an impassive ,stoic rebel with his languid body language and expressions ,
the african disc jockey is the only oasis in this wide desert who helps him by his radio transmissions but the social injustice is too true to be anything but nightmarish ,
i was chilled ,excited ,and ultimately in awe of the raw passion this road movie conveys ,
montages of the car racing in nevada desert,a nude girl rider on a bike indifferent to the norms ,
the quest for truth and the most vital aspect of human state established as the freedom of soul expressed as an illusion in speed through a vehicle is genius ,
but it is a sad satire on a dream too and it marks the ritual sacrifice of a generation which lost it's vision because of socio-political injustice and i have seldom seen a testament as powerful as this to that affect ,
as for visual addicts there is enough great vehicle driving to give you goose pimples but it is the intellectual message which becomes an inherent essential to witness by anyone interested in saving humanity .
an extremely precious movie with loads of treasures that will leave you ecstatic and choked with emotion .
usman khawaja
- jbz7879

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