Film Review: The Passenger - 50th Anniversary

 "The Passenger"

 **** (out of ****)

"The Passenger" (1975), Michelangelo Antonioni's masterful study on identity, alienation, isolation and desolation celebrates its 50th anniversary, remaining as relevant as ever.

When film critic Roger Ebert originally reviewed the Italian filmmaker's English language effort, he questioned the film's title. "Passenger" he thought referred to a nameless female character played by Maria Schneider. But if Schneider is the passenger does that make Jack Nicholson's David Locke character "the driver"? That can't be because a driver always has a destination in mind. David Locke does not. While this may sound like the ramblings of a Hungarian mad-man, it's actually a key insight into Antonioni's film. "The Passenger" is about many things. One of them is about people with no destination. Life is the driver and we are all merely passengers aimlessly traveling along on its journey.

Antonioni's work may be a challenge for some viewers. His style and pacing reflect a different era of moviemaking. The films of Antonioni are about tone and moods. They are as much about our experience watching them as they are about plot. In fact, Antonioni often made the audience confront their expectations of narrative film. His most famous example would be "L'Avventura" (1961), a film seemingly about the disappearance of a woman and the recovery search for her but it never comes to a resolution. "The Passenger" is also about a disappearance of sorts, that doesn't come to a resolution (some) movie goers may find satisfactory.

The film speaks to the disillusionment and uncertainty of its time period, coming after President Nixon's resignation and the U.S. ending its involvement in Vietnam. People lost trust in their government and its institutions. This correlates to one of the great contributions Antonioni had on cinema, as pointed out in Peter Bondanella's rewarding book Italian Cinema From Neorealism to the Present. Bondanella writes of Antonioni's "ability to portray modern neurotic, alienated, and guilt-ridden characters whose emotional lives are sterile - or at least poorly developed - and who seem to be out of place in their environments."

It is precisely because of the themes of alienation and detachment from one's environment, it would seem "The Passenger" would be able to resonate with modern viewers. Living in a world with an increasing and alarming reliance upon "social" "media", we are alienating and detaching ourselves from reality and human contact. We can "disappear" and become whomever we want to be on-line. I like what The New Yorker critic Richard Brody, who reviewed a DVD release of the film, wrote when discussing the theme of alienation in Antonioni's work stating "the particular kind of alienation he devoted his career to is the one that was most crucial to his times, the kind resulting from the rise of mass media."

It is no coincidence than that the protagonist in Antonioni's film is in the media business. David Locke is an English reporter sent to North Africa to make a documentary on a developing political situation in the country. He is attempting to interview the rebellious guerrillas. 

Through David's profession, "The Passenger" is able to make a larger commentary on the idea of truth and more specifically truth in the media. At various times in the film we are shown clips of the documentary being worked on. Each time we see the footage, it brings up the different ways media is used and how it can manipulate us. The first time we see the documentary, David is interviewing to the President, after which his wife (Jenny Runacre) confronts David about for not standing up to the President's lies. David calmly tells her it's all part of the game. And so our first lesson is the media is a tool for propaganda. The second time we see the documentary it is footage of a political execution, blurring a line between sensationalism and objective reporting. The third and final time is of another interview David was conducting but this time with a witch doctor. The doctor turns the tables on David and instead of providing direct answers to his questions, decides to film David instead. The shift in point-of-view is meant to signify our own inherent bias in our search for truth. David's preconceived notions about the doctor obstruct an objective desire for truth.

These sequences showing the documentary material may blend into another theme we see at the beginning of the film, communication. Being in a different country David is unable to communicate with the villagers he encounters. He is hoping someone can take him to the guerrillas, hiding out somewhere in the desert. David is never able to get the help he is looking for leading him to have three negative experiences in a row. One person flat out leaves him stranded at the first sign of trouble. It is followed by a scene of sheer desperation as David breaks down, yelling to the Gods and begins to sob. How can such a situation not leave a person to feel isolated? 

With the documentary seemingly not going as David had planned, he has hit a dead end. It may be what inspires his impulsive action to switch identities with a deceased man staying in the same hotel, in the room next to him. What may be most revealing about these actions is his utter lack of interest in how this will affect the lives of those that know him such as his wife and their adopted child who strangely is never shown on-screen and is only mentioned briefly in passing. 

If David was expecting the grass to be greener on the other side, that is not what happens. Changing identity does not give him a carefree life where he can shirk all responsibilities. David discovers the deceased man was a gun runner and decides to keep up with his appointments and drop offs. Does David think this will fill a void in his life and provide it with a deeper meaning? Probably not.

It is on this new journey in his life he encounters a younger woman (Schneider). She offers companionship and makes the rounds with David, after he confesses everything to her. She is the one that wants to read a deeper meaning into David's actions and encourages him to keep all of the appointments. It leads to a larger question however, what is she getting out of this? It is a question David repeatedly asks the woman, "what the f*ck are you doing with me?"

And so essentially we have the story of two drifters escaping the realities of their lives pretending they are different people. Will their new identities give them a new outlook on life and change their perspectives? Is the message of the film revealed within a story David tells the woman of a man who was blind and regained his sight after a surgery. He now could see how poor and dirty the world was. The world became an ugly and violent place. His fear of violence lead him to never leave his home where he eventually killed himself. 

Antonioni ends his film on a note that personally filled me with sadness. The last line of the film is the one that stung me. A character says she doesn't recognize someone, while another character confirms she does. For me it suggested what is the purpose of life? And what does our life amount to if no one is there to validate our existence? If it were possible, life seems a bit more shapeless by the end of the film. What happens to some of these characters? They just travel on, finding new roads, new paths, aimless passengers seeking a destination.

I suppose for some viewers the sight of Jack Nicholson in an Antonioni art house film may seem out of place. But bear in the mind this is the Jack Nicholson of the 1970s, the Nicholson of films such as "Five Easy Pieces" (1970), which thematically isn't that far removed from "The Passenger". On its surface though the marriage of these two artists coming together does appear to be a contrast. The late and great movie critic Michael Wilmington described it this way in his Chicago Tribune review of the film's 30th anniversary re-release, "There's something almost hypnotic about the way these two very different film artists, with their utterly dissimilar styles, meld together here - like a couple who seem all wrong for each other but still strike off incandescent sparks." 

While Nicholson may absorb the lion's share of attention, lets not forget Schneider's contribution to the film. She was a few years removed from her most iconic role in Bernardo Bertolucci's "Last Tango in Paris" (1972), another film about grief and trying to numb the pain from the realities of life. There is a similar vulnerability to her role here and in a way she serve's as the film's eyes. She is our witness of these events. In Roger Ebert's 30th anniversary review of the film in the Chicago Sun-Times he wrote of Schneider's performance calling it "a performance of breathtaking spontaneity. She is without calculation, manner or affect."

In the 50 years since the release of "The Passenger", it seems to have fallen into obscurity. Other films from the time period have achieved a "classic" status and stayed in the public's conscious such as Robert Altman's "Nashville" (1975), Sidney Lumet's "Dog Day Afternoon" (1975), and Stanley Kubrick's "Barry Lyndon" (1975). But "The Passenger" feels the most like a 1970s film and yet as I initially explained it doesn't age the film in such a way that we cannot find it relatable in today's world.

One reason to explain the film's lack of popularity was due to Jack Nicholson owning the rights to the film and keeping it out of circulation. It wasn't until the 30th anniversary theatrical re-lease in 2005 and DVD release that followed that a majority of people saw this work for the first time.

This is not to suggest the film didn't have its defenders in 1975. Chicago Tribune movie critic Gene Siskel called it one of the best films of the year, placing it in the number two spot.  Andrew Sarris at the Village Voice also placed it in the number two spot of his year end list. In his New York Times review, critic Vincent Canby celebrated the film as a "poetic vision".

For the past 17 years of this movie blog, I've committed the cinematic sin of not reviewing enough of Antonioni's work. It's the same horrific realization I came to about  American filmmaker Sidney Lumet a few years ago, which I have rectified since. The last time I wrote a review for an Antonio film was in 2009 when I reviewed "Il Grido" (1957). This is most unfortunate as at one time I was deeply under  Antonioni's spell. I will vow to make a greater effort to discuss his work and hopefully introduce him to readers.

"The Passenger" is the kind of work some viewers will describe as slow moving but I would call it a meditative personal film with many layers that could be interpreted in multiple ways. Going back to Michael Wilmington's review, I like how he concluded it, highlighting the ways in which its charms reveal itself over time. He writes, "Decades later, its riddles seem less puzzling, more poetic - even endearing. It's a movie from the past that still points ahead to the future: a cinematic rite of passage that raptly recalls a time when the world may have been as uncertain as now, but the movies were often lovelier and more daring."