there no way to confront zabriskie point from a rational standpoint or attempt to describe it use word and convention you would use for other movie . this be because it isn not a movie . it an idea and a feeling that the filmmaker have that somehow get turn into an object as mundane a a film . what we see be not the unfolding of a plot and but rather a sequence of event that we do not see in film every day but only imagine happen a the background we ourselves will supply when we hear about some tragic event in the news of or from friend . we we see be our imagination of people that be abstraction to u no one we know and but we have doubtless heard of them in a book or on tv or somewhere . so what do we see . event . we see people argue and drive and and inevitably and escape . only the escape be from something intangible it be the collective situation and cruelty that the mass of a civilization have allow to exist though laziness and or . human nature . set in late 1960s los angeles and our player act against and in response to the self inflicted misery of modern existence . these creature be effectively blank slate that can display any trait we can imagine if we desire . although the action take might be see a criminal or irresponsible and and the character be not themselves criminal . they be human being seek a return to a familiar and non manufacture existence that be beyond the normalcy they experience everyday . not that they be ever happy or sad and but they achieve a type of self actualization when they move beyond and away from the suicide of modern living . they only achieve true life in the natural world and even though that be the next victim of modern existence . at the end and zabriski point be a eulogy of humanity attachment to the natural world . a even the most desolate piece of the earth succumb to our notion of progress and we lose our soul on the path to death of the human spirit .