The Passenger
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Movie Reviews of The Passenger
Movie Review: Surreal & Hypnotic
Summary: 5 Stars
"The Passenger" is a lost film by legendary director Michelangelo Antonioni. I had never heard of this move until it was issued on DVD not two months ago, but was drawn to it because Jack Nicholson was in it. It's in own odd way, "The Passenger" is surreal, hypnotic, and truly a beautiful movie. Jack Nicholson gives one of his best performance, Maria Schneider (has she made anything besides this and "Last Tango in Paris") is great. This movie manages to entertain even during points where there a long gaps without dialogue. The movie begins with a journalist named David Locke (Nicholson) who's somewhere in Africa, at a cheap motel. At the motel he meets a man named David Robertson and a while later finds the man dead from a heart attack. Locke is burned out with his journalism and decides to steal the man's identity; he switches the pictures on the passports and takes the man's belongings. Turns out, Robertson was a gun-runner so Locke begins to follow suit. Schneider appears in the film early on for a few minutes, but doesn't really enter the movie as a character until about an hour or so in. Schneider's character doesn't have a name either, she's merely Girl. As some colleagues of Locke's await to recieve his belongings, Locke begins running from a man who knows him but doesn't know that Robertson is him. He also meets the Girl and falls for her. The movie, make no mistake, moves at a slow pace and it's not a movie for everybody. This is a movie that's directed more towards film buffs and people who actually know who Maria Schneider is. This film is a masterpiece and I'm happy it's been released on DVD. I recommend it, if you're capable of sitting through slow-paced movies; Movies that many people would call dull.
GRADE: A-
Movie Review: Everything returns to nowhere....
Summary: 5 Stars
This is Antonioni's last masterpiece. It has had a very unique journey (like its title character). It was the last film on an MGM contract that Antonioni signed with Carlo Ponti for 3 films. The films were Blow Up (major success), and Zabriskie Point (notorious bomb, at least financially). This is arguably Antonioni's best film, with one of Jack Nicholson's greatest performances. The film has been out of circulation for years, but recently was restored and released on DVD in a slightly longer version than the one that played on its initial theatrical run. Nicholson himself actually owned the rights to the film, and lovingly took care of it for all those years. Nicholson has said that he held Antonioni (and Kubrick) in deep respect, and Nicholson isn't easy to please. He's one of the greatest actors ever, and he wants to work with great directors (like all great actors). This film is really quite stunning, with some gorgeous cinematography (by Luciano Tovoli), great performances, some humour (especially for an Antonioni film), tension, romance (a real one), and it has one of the greatest shots in the history of cinema. The final shot is a masterful long take, one of the greatest in cinema history. The film was originally titled Profession: Reporter, but the American distributor retitled it The Passenger. Normally, when an American studio/distributor retitles something, it's for the worst. Not here. The Passenger is a much more puzzling, ambiguous title, and it works very well. It seemed that all of Antonioni's themes blended together here, and it's probably his best film. He made only a handful of films after this, but this is one of the greatest.Movie Review: A Mysterious Masterpiece for Film Buffs
Summary: 5 Stars
The Passenger is a study in identity. The study is facilitated not only by the plot line, but also by the shifting camera perspectives. Like Antonioni's other movies, this movie does not attempt to resolve the subject matter. Instead, upon completion of movie, the viewer is left with some poignant questions. This movie was out of circulation for the longest time...rumour has it that Jack Nicholson had bought all its known prints after its less than successful showing in the 1970s.
For you film buffs and film students, what's truly technically remarkable about this movie is the 7.5 minute-long final, unedited, single-camera shot. In this shot, the camera amazingly moves from a fixed rail to a crane-mount without the slightest vibration. It also happens to pass through window bars while doing this! To really appreciate this shot, one has to realize that this movie was made well before the advent of Stabilcams and Glidecams, and before computer generated special effects. For the longest time this shot was one of the great mysteries in film-making until an interview of Antonioni surfaced in which he described how he had accomplished it. I don't want to give anything away....but the guy was a genius! He knew the limitations of the tools available to him and figured out a way to get around them.
This is Antonioni's second-last movie, not his last as some of the other reviewers suggested. Antonioni's last movie was Beyond the Clouds, which was completed with the help of Wim Wenders (Wings of Desire), because Antonioni had suffred a stroke. Last I checked Beyond the Clouds was available only on VHS.
Movie Review: The futility of the existence!
Summary: 5 Stars
In the story of the Cinema you may count with the fingers of two hands the films which have focused with so artistic commitment level , the ontological loneliness, the loneliness ` oppression, and existence `s lack of sense. At first glance the films would be: Ingmar Bergman's Seventh seal, Winter light and The Silence, Louis Malle' s Fire within, Polanski's Repulsion, Bertolucci's last Tango, Fassbinder's Desperation, Antonioni's Adventure and this one.
So, consider you are before a hostile , merciless and unscrupulous movie who will show the last frontier of the waste land of human mind. Antonioni made a powerful portrait around the life of a man bored of being himself decides to live another life. In this state of things he will experience multiple issues derived from this decision.
Somehow you must be involved with the essential roots of the Existentialism Literature Movement and having read at least three fundamentals books: Albert Camus' The Stranger and Sartre' s The wall and The word. So having put in context the fundamental basis it will be easier to come to the dramatic core.
And thanks to that advise you'll understand why Antonioni maintains almost twelve minutes the camera absolutely quiet in the middle of the desert .
To my mind this film meant for Nicholson the definitive jump as actor , facing and winning with this unusual performance and excellent film leaving the normal critics of peaceful movie and extremely slow script.
Remember you will initiate a weird journey with the master of the silence: Michelangelo Antonioni.
Movie Review: No man can escape himself.
Summary: 5 Stars
David Locke: reporter, starts out in the North African desert looking for a story . . . for the truth. Somehow he loses the trail and himself in the endless rolling sand dunes and "stillness" of the desert that's like "a kind of waiting." Locke is weary, impatient, disillusioned and tired of "waiting", preferring "men to landscapes" and when a fellow traveler in the hotel room adjacent his has a heart attack and dies, Locke seizes the opportunity to reinvent himself by literally stepping into the shoes of another. Who was this man Robinson? What did he believe in? Ironically the answer is tied to the search initiated by Locke at the beginning of the film. Of course he has no way of knowing this and must travel this fatalistic journey in which there are no coincidences. Director Antonioni has patience enough to listen to the wind, an omnipresent presence that seems to mock the urgency of man. With visual acuity he shows us the marvelous architectural wonders of Gaudi, and other places of refuge where man can hide from man but ultimately can never escape himself or the ever persistent question: "What are you running away from?" Jack Nicholson's portrayal of David Locke is brilliantly low key - having a distinctive presence that carries the film but does not overwhelm. The pivotal final scene (film making at it's finest!) is executed with a whimper - not a bang, and yet its reverberations are felt internally like an earthquake. Ultimately the words and works of man are carried away by the wind, leaving us with only long sweeping panoramic landscapes captured with patience by Antonioni's camera.