Three men on a blog: FILM REVIEW: The Passenger (1975)

The Passenger (USA, 1975)Directed by Michelangelo AntonioniStarring Jack Nicholson, Maria Schneider, Jenny Runacre, Ian HendryThere is an argument put forth by film theorists that today'saudiences are incapable of appreciating older films. The saturation ofour culture with music videos and the internet creates a naturalimpatience, which carries over into cinema through increasingly rapidediting and flashier cinematography.

This causes the simplification ofimagery and the symbols which lie behind them, and the whole processbegins feeding on itself until we are all infantilised.Notwithstanding its inherent arrogance towards the cinema-goingpublic, this hypothesis is flawed because it is based upon a nostalgicassumption about older films. Contrary to its assumptions, potentiallygreat films are much reduced to being merely good or very good, not byshortcomings in their audience but in the difficult attitude they taketowards presenting their ideas. The Passenger is a distinctive example,being a revered classic which is indeed very good, but whose flaws areeasy to know and keep it from always being great.The Passenger is Michelangelo Antonioni's third and final feature inthe English language, the others being Blow-Up and Zabriskie Point.Like many of his films, it explores the issue of alienation,specifically of characters feeling isolated and out of order in theworld around them. But where Zabriskie Point attempts this analysis withan entire generation, embodied by the two students who have love in thedesert, The Passenger is a lot more focussed, more personal andultimately more successful.The film explores the extent to which a single act or idea can alteran individual's life, using the trading of identities as a means toexplore existential disillusionment. When we first meet David Locke,expertly played by Jack Nicholson, he is bored of his life, bored of hiswork and desperate to run to someplace where no-one can see him. Hetrades identities with the idle man in the adjacent room believing that hecan start his spirit over, without any baggage or responsibilities: foronce he can be the way he wants, for as tenacious as he wants.Having taken on this mantle, and changed from Locke to Robertson,our leading man quickly finds himself in dangerous circumstances worthyof any thriller. The view in the church, in which Nicholson bluffs hisway through a meeting with the men he is supplying with arms, isreminiscent of Richard Hannay during the political meeting in The 39Steps. Both characters have to believe on their feet to convert the worldthat they are someone else, making all decisions and giving all answersbased purely on impulse and guesswork.But unlike John Buchan's novel, or any of the film versions thatfollowed, the thrills in The Passenger are often more internalised. Thereis a thriller-like plot, both in Locke's new identity as a gun runnerand in the efforts of his manager and wife to track him down. But theseelements have to have equal billing to the existential thrust of thefilm, which is concerned in identity and the internalised conflicts ofthe central character. The film manages to counterbalance the two very well,giving us enough moments of peril and near-misses to restrain the lesspatient among us interested.The key theme of The Rider is that all men (and possiblywomen) are destined by the same doubts, fears and anxieties. Assuming a newidentity is not a viable way to run from oneself, no matter howmethodically one goes around it. On the one hand, 'Robertson' findshimself bound to supply guns which he cannot possibly deliver; thesecond he takes the down-payment in the church, he becomes a wanted man.On the other hand, elements of Locke in his former life begin toencroach, as his initial enthusiasm begins to make way to melancholy,cynicism, and last an all-encompassing sense of futility.The key aspect in The Passenger comes in the final ten minutes, whereLocke and The Girl are in concealment in a hotel, knowing fully well that theformer will presently be killed. Locke relates a tale of a blind man whoregains his sight: the man was initially elated, but this vision exposedhim to the horrors of the universe which he could previously only imagine,and he ended up a hermit who committed suicide. This is the nub of thefilm: what seems like a chance to run the creation and see it with neweyes only leads to greater suffering. Ultimately all we can do is acceptour status as passengers, unable to regulate the mechanism of thisworld and fully mindful that whatsoever we do, death will always catch upwith us.This outlook is furthered by Antonioni's direction, which highlightshow small and lost the characters are. Whether they are crawlingthrough the defect or in the busy streets of an interior city, the centralcharacters are presented from a distance, insignificant in the case ofall around them. Even in its most romantic moment, when it appears thatLocke and the girl have made love, the camera keeps its distance,peering through the door when other directors would have taken us upclose and personal. The picture is beautifully shot with washed-out coloursand a serial of interesting camera angle.The most celebrated of these is the penultimate scene, a seven-minutetracking shot which is both a technical showcase (predating theSteadicam) and a poetic means to get the report to a close. As Lockelights up a butt and lies down on the bed, the camera moves slowlyforward through the bars of the window, out into the square, follows themovements of various characters before turning round and drifting backin to find Locke dead. This is Locke's soul taking flight, finallyescaping from this earth into something new, and winning one final look atwhat he is leaving behind.For all its virtues, The Passenger is not without its faults. Evento those conversant with Antonioni's style, or more general trends inEuropean filmmaking, the movie is very, very easy and approximately half an hourtoo long. Because the stress is so often on emotion rather than plot,its history could have been handled in 90 minutes without losing anyimpact, whether visually or emotionally. Antonioni's languorous shootingstyle with long slow takes and almost no soundtrack can seempretentious on occasion, albeit not so often that we lose all interest inwhat is happening.The other job with The Passenger is the sensation of distanceinvolved. Just as, in the words of David Lynch, the artist needn'tsuffer to show suffering, so the audience shouldn't necessary bealienated during a movie about alienation. Like the act of Tom Kalin,The Passenger keeps its audience at arms' length, not out of coynessabout its subject matter, but because that seems the instinctive way to tellthe story. And as with Swoon or Savage Grace, this conclusion may be theright one, but it makes connecting with the characters more difficult,putting the full history in jeopardy.The Passenger is an intriguing and persistent work whose influence onmodern cinema continues, as seen by its substantial presence in AntonCorbijn's The American. Jack Nicholson is on good form, albeit not quiteas well as in Chinatown, and the movie is recommended viewing for anyoneinterested in European cinema. For all its faults and bits that drag,there is a slow-burning profundity to it, which keeps it an enticing andmemorable experience for generations to come.Rating: 4/5Verdict: A persistent and intriguing slow-burner