The Passenger Rating: Sorry, this product is not currently available. Cast: Jack Nicholson Maria Schneider Ian Hendry Steven Berkoff

The Passenger Reviews

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A removal from what we call living...
Unlike Antonioni's two attempts at capturing the personal alienation brought about by the cultural changes of the 60s--Zabriskie Point and Blow-Up--The Passenger is a signficantly more grounded film that focuses as well on alienation, but uses a diversity of foreign cultures to underline one man's alienation from life regardless of location.

The two films prior to The Passenger, also set outside the director's native country, but now obviously dated, tried using specific individual cultural settings (America and England) to highlight the emptiness of human behavior in the face of shallow cultural values. The Passenger is a decidedly more timeless film because instead of focusing on a specific culture, it wisely focuses on an individual, a globe-trotting reporter, whose own focus is on war and revolution in third world nations.

David Locke begins to grow weary of his life that constantly exposes him to the negative forces between and within nations all too common in today's world (another reason this film is still tremendously fresh and powerful today). When another man with a similar appearance suddenly dies in a small remote African village hotel Locke himself is staying in, he assumes the other man's (Robertson's) identity and follows an international trail to keep the appointments in Robertson's little black book. This takes him from Africa to Germany to Spain.

Without giving too much away here, it becomes all too clear that Locke--now Robertson--wants to escape himself. Antonioni, in collaboration with brilliant scripter Mark Peploe, moves us with Locke/Robertson from place to place as he blindly follows his nose, or, more accurately, runs from other noses following him--one of which is his own. Another of them belongs to his wife who begins to believe her husband is still alive somewhere. Still others are those of the police. But the most dangerous noses are those of some of the same people Locke, while a reporter, passively interviewed. Now, as Robertson, his role is not so passive anymore.

In his haste to escape, Locke finds that Robertson was involved in a dangerous business that could result in the ultimate escape. This is a great film that fuses thriller elements with drama that penetrates because we see and understand what Locke thinks and does. Jack Nicholson's portrait of the escapee is right on the money; he sounds, at least half the time, as though he's not really sure that what he's saying is true, or that he can believe it--exactly what someone running from himself would sound like.

Antonioni emphasizes the isolation of people from each other in interesting visual ways. He often shoots scenes with the camera at a noticeable distance from the actors; we are physically removed from the action, and with this distance, there is the distinct feeling of what we see as observers being not really action, but a kind of indistinct or unclear version of action. As well, the camera intermittently closes up on Locke when he is doing nothing, or waiting, or is stuck in a rut (literally, in a sand rut when his vehicle is snagged in the African desert). These close-ups are a very effective counerpart to the distance shots; the first removes us from what could possibly be critical action, and the second hits us in the face with the opposite.

A real shame this is not on DVD. As of this writing (October 2003), the only DVD version is a Japanese Region 2 NTSC disc, very hard to find.

Objective Examination Of Identity and the Self
In this highly formal excercise of cinema, Antonioni implements what is known as the, non-subjective or objective camera style, or as Antonioni refered to it, the "wandering camera." In the very first shot of the film, the camera pans across the rural African village and casually picks up Locke. We view Locke in a long shot as he pulls up in a jeep and exits to ask for directions, just then the camera resumes panning into an alleyway, away from the action and away from the protagonist. This technique is applied throughout the picture and raises philosophical and cinematic questions. Whose point of view are we observing? What does it mean to have the camera and the action function as separate entities?

Antonioni, whom I never found to be a "sound concious" director, creatively manipulates sound in this picture. In a startling sequence involving, Locke and Robertson, Locke uses a tape recorder to play back a conversation between the two men while Locke is working on a passport photo. In a single take, the camera again begins to wander away from the recorder unto a patio where we are now physically seeing the two men continuing this conversation. The men enter the house (there is a cut to the door) to have a drink. The camera now pans away back to original table where Locke was seated and there he is, still working on the passport, with the recorder beside him playing the conversation. <

This is my personal favorite Antonioni film and I regared it as his most important and one of the most important pieces of existentialist cinema. If you enjoyed this film try, Memories Of Underdevelopment by Thomas Alea.

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