Week Five: FLICK | Vanishing Point, 1971, Dir Richard Sarafian

I was saving Vanishing Point for Mystery Meat, at Attic 506, in Chapel Hill, but then there was a virus. So, I’m going to share what I wrote, as I wrote it for a rooftop viewing, where the movie remains unknown until the first frame rolls. This one is tough to find in streamable form, but there are hard copies available, and I’d argue that it’s worth the purchase. Do not fall for the ol’ bate and switch and accidentally watch the 1997 remake. Here we go…

Tonight’s Mystery Meat is surprisingly understated, considering the cult status of its high octane fuel guzzling hero. It’s important to note the distinction here between hero and protagonist. The protagonist in this flick is a quiet man, who, at his introduction, is at best lukewarm in every respect. He looks bored. He moves without urgency. He has no charm and exudes only a hint of gravity that could just as easily be malaise. But when he climbs into the hero, a stock MOPAR muscle car, to deliver it to the other side of the country in record time, the protagonist glows a little. And what happens when a motorcycle cop threatens that glow, by waving indignantly for protagonist to pull hero over? The car accelerates – urging the man’s boot to the depth of the footwell. They stop only to guzzle more fuel, or hide under a pile of branches, or let the man pee and re-up on bennies. Everything else is as meaningless as the stoic profile of the car, or the blank expression on the man’s face.

But somewhere during this flat out burn through one panoramic landscape after another, a switch happens, and the man begins to fully radiate everything that he seemed to lack, while the car, with its white base coat, now dull with dust and showing innumerable dents and dings, starts to recede to the back of the stage. A blind radio dj evangelizes the man’s awkward name over the air waves. Public enthusiasm for the man builds to fever pitch. People come out in droves just to see him whip by at 120 miles an hour. And so, traveling at unsettling speed with relentless determination, and a newly bonded “everyman” aura, the protagonist evolves into the hero. And when the duo meets a bleak demise, it’s not the car’s name that rattles around in your mind as the credits role. It’s the man’s name. It’s Kowalski. – GJ