Vanishing Point

Vanishing Point, with its naked women and racial violence, is indeed an exploitation movie. It pushes some of the moral boundaries that other movies weren't willing to cross. Kowalski was a desirable character for the time, doing his own thing, not getting slowed down by "The Man". We learn about his past and his misfortunes and try to look into his character but it still remains difficult to understand him. In the end, he kills himself in a blockade set up by police leaving us asking, why?

The character Super Soul tends to act as a guardian angel to Kowalski throughout the movie. However, once the radio station is attacked, he lies to Kowalski about the police. From this point onward, we notice that the man Super Soul has listening to the police radio and giving information goes from being black to white. This almost represents that Super Soul sold out and is now controlled by "The Man". The guardian angel who was helping to lead Kowalski to freedom is now no longer free himself.

We spoke about Kowalski as being an anti-hero, my view of him came out slightly different. Though he's speeding and evading cops throughout the entire movie, I never saw him as an actual bad person. All I noticed were the old stories of him being a hero and how he was still kind to strangers on the road. He seems more like a misunderstood hero lost from society rather than your traditional anti-hero. I think in that way, it made it so he is more likeable by the viewer.

Though Kowalski's death at the end almost seems pointless, it does represent a possible deeper meaning for Kowalski. All his life, he's been losing things against his will. Driving his car into the bulldozers was his last act of freedom, rather than allowing himself to be caught, meaning he ended everything on his own terms. However, though his death is violent, they did not make it out to be gruesome. All there is to be seen is the exploding car. In the end, we do not see a body, nor blood, just a smile.