(I)

From the very first sequence, this is a starkly shot film with a very unique visual signature to everything you see. A desolate, exotic locale for a movie: the North African desert. But this desert setting is perfectly in accord with the refreshing cinematic technique of Michelangelo Antonioni, who always stressed economy. Just as in his other works, there are no unnecessary ornaments or frills here. He introduces us to the strange, existential story in this film, and its odd, solitary, lead character-- in as clean, pure, and undiluted terms as possible. The principle here is that 'less is more'.

Some people really dislike this about Antonioni. He uses his camera in such a quiet way; and there is just this single, very terse figure/ground relationship which is the focus of his attention. But I think he knows that character stands out with more relief when its set against a minimalist background. Here, because characterization is channeled through Jack Nicholson, (far better even than in 'Blow-up' with David Hemmings) its more than enough. The brevity and scarcity in the film funnels you straight into Nicholson's awesome talent. We are along with him for the ride.

The plot starts out cryptically and simply, with very little explained about the man the camera spends so much time on. Jack Nicholson is a reporter named David Locke, and he is covering an African civil war. But beyond this, you must infer most everything else about him from just what you see-just by observing his behavior, and nothing else. There is scant dialogue of any kind. The depth of Nicholson's character is conveyed in miniscule components, parsed out after long intervals. His overall demeanor is weary, frustrated, sullen; the typical traveler who cant get good service. But he is also dispirited with his mission and in a way, despondent about his whole future and way of life.

Then suddenly, he sheds his persona and takes on someone elses'. He is staying in an isolated hotel and a man in the next room dies accidentally-and Nicholson decides to trade identities with the corpse; leaving the hotel with this new identity and letting everyone think it is he who has died. It's the personal reasons for this act, which Antonioni explores throughout the rest of the movie: the consequences and responsibilities incurred when you gamble upon coincidence and invest in random chance.

(II)

'Passenger' follows the progress of a man through a personal crisis; an identity transformation. The film is split with a Doppler-shift down the meridian of the identity theft Nicholson commits. His problems after this act consist of trying to make sure his ex-wife and employers continue to assume he is dead; and deciding how much of the false man's life and business to play at.

With the plot as its laid out this way, we might not ever really ever know the full reasons why Locke exchanged personality for that of another. But Antonioni adds some really clever flourishes: since Locke was a news journalist, the video interviews he conducted up to the point of his 'death' are available both to the people who begin to hunt him, and to us. We actually see more of Locke revealed in these flashbacks than we do in real-time. It adds just the right note. We get a better idea of the reasoning behind this bold act, why he casually gave up his whole history on a whim.

In his assignments up to this side trip to North Africa, we discern that Locke is dissatisfied with 'the rules' governing his profession. He is a talented observer, and wants to be a good reporter. But he finds all the news he gathers is in a way, pre-constrained by cultural filters. Its not raw enough, instead, its already been processed for him. In other words, he is never getting the real story; as long as he is a reporter, people frame their information for him as a reporter. As long as he is an Anglo, people treat him as an Anglo.

But after the identity-shedding transformation, he is free; and he has the time of his life. Returning to London, Locke amusedly begins playing the role of the dead man: keeping his engagements, carrying out business deals. Theres no accountability; he is pretending to be someone else. Only one thing: the dead man was an arms dealer and Nicholson is getting into deep trouble by masquerading this way. His philosophical pleasure may be cut short sooner than he expects. He doesnt see the trouble coming his way, but we do. Its a sort of combination of film noir and road-trip movie here; and it works.

(III)

Things begin to unravel. Shady customers start to dog his footsteps. Growing increasingly edgy, as he continues to follow the strange itinerary, Nicholson hooks up by coincidence with a young architecture student backpacking through Spain (well-played by petite, dusky, sensual Maria Schneider). They're an odd pair; but their joining forces makes one of a most intriguing screen romances of the period. She isn't given much to do in the screenplay, but makes a wonderful calming presence to the brittle Nicholson. Her character insists that Locke should, in all rationality, continue his journey--she is rigorous about principles. Locke acquiesces and he continues on, down along the coast of Spain towards Africa again, on his fool's errands, to meet his fate.

I wont expose any more of the plot. But I will say the final sequence of this movie is extremely startling and powerful. I had never even heard about it; in my opinion it should be talked about much, much more. Totally daring and innovative. Antonioni really shows what he can do here-you simply have to see it.

There are some flaws, yes: a few of Antonioni's flashbacks come off lame and awkward- too abrupt. They're really irksome. And there is a sloppy element in the final denoument, which I still cant understand: the drivers school vehicle. I yearn for the movie to be re-cut to remove these failings. But its still very satisfying as is.

(IV)

The bottom line here is that Nicholson has, in this film, a showcase for his talents like few other projects I have seen him in. This film was made in 1975, just a year after 'Chinatown' and the same year as his cameo in The Who's `Tommy' and his lead role in Milos Foreman's `One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest'. Jack is quite young, fit, and good-looking when he made this film. Its rewarding to remember him as he was then, before he both let himself go somewhat physically, and also began playing so many 'sick, horny focker' roles. This is one of the highlights of his entire life's work, imho. Easily as memorable as Jake Gittes or MacMurphy.

Jack is careful to do a good job in this movie--perhaps at this point in his career, he was still worried about major goof-ups. Its definitely prior to the point where he began to 'coast'. It looks like he took this film seriously--and probably enjoyed it immensely. Anyway, what other actor do you know today that could walk away with a difficult role like this one; an actor who would be as supremely interesting to us (as Nicholson is, in many scenes in this film) doing not much of anything for long moments at a time?

I doubt even DeNiro could have succeeded--he would have played it too 'tough-guy' and added too much gesture. Its Nicholson's laconic, dry twang, his sardonic gestures and those bored, squinty, seen-it-all eyes, that makes it work. There is a world-weariness about him in this performance that is quite special. The weight of past experiences exudes strongly from him; and its just what Antonioni needed. This quality defined him for this role like no other contemporary actor of his time.

Anyway, in this flick, you know he is doomed but you aren't really sure how Antonioni is going to do it. Antonioni creates massive tension with that very economical, severe camera style and almost no music. There are many scenes where the only sounds are the background noises from the environment itself; you can practically see Nicholson's sweat, hear his breath, and feel his pulse. Nicholson, surely very aware of this tight focus on him, maintains a rigid grip on his character throughout the film.

He isn't at all cocky--his special trait is his vulnerability. Nicholson always seems tough on the outside, but also as if he can still be hurt (as we see here, and in Chinatown as well). Its a vulnerability very like Bogart's in 'Casablanca'. In fact, if this film had been made in a previous generation, (as Gene Siskel once claimed) there would have been no there actor besides Bogart who could have even pulled it off. But no matter what: its great to see Nicholson on his own, competing with no other strong castmembers, just cruising along as a lone, insecure American among hostile and unfriendly foreigners.

His characterization is superbly restrained and un-showy; his gestures and expressions are as bland as possible; and there are no wildly quotable lines or speeches (any Nicholson fan should view this film for this reason alone). Anyway, by the end of the flick, you are positioned so closely alongside Nicholson--so wrapped up in his fate--that the brilliant, low-key finale can take you by surprise and it leaves a terrific poignancy.

In short, there are many reasons to like this film. I heartily recommend it. Its easily the best movie I have seen in some time. Its essential for appreciating both Nicholson and Antonioni. I encourage you to rent this movie on VHS as I am sure you will relish it as well.

Slow but well worth the time it takes to arrive at the shattering conclusion. Watch it more than once as there are many small visual cues and tips that add both to the plot and theme. Jack Nicholson is superb - and surprisingly low-key - as the jaded and detached reporter who switches identity with a dead man out of boredom more than anything else. Maria Schneider is fine in a somewhat underwritten role. The real stars however are Antonioni's restlessly roving camera and the sublime locations which include the Sahara desert, a cable-car, and that bewitching Gaudi rooftop in Barcelona.

Michelangelo Antonioni's films are very static, with a few dialogues. They describe boredom of bourgeois class, they're cold. Sometimes they're unbearable: either you like them or you don't.

"Professione: reporter", to me, belongs to the most interesting period of Antonioni's career (between the second half of the Sixties and the first of the Seventies). Because in these years the Italian director made his most accessible works: "Blow Up" (1966), "Zabryskie point" (1969) and "Professione: reporter" ("The Passenger", 1974). These films contain more action and more situations. They are neither more commercial nor more mainstream, but they talk about an adventure or a dream.

A journalist in North Africa switches the identity with a dead man who looks like him. He does this to escape from his life and for living a more interesting one. But he'll pay for his choice...

It's difficult to say, but this Antonioni movie (with his recurrent themes and -in a smaller way- times) has a lot of suspense, if I can say so. Once you begin to watch it, you can't give up. The funny thing is that nothing really big or special happens: sometimes it seems a road movie, sometimes it is a typical Antonioni analysis of the society. Jack Nicholson -how young he was at that time!- fills the film, his performance and his expressions are brilliant. It's also interesting the chemistry with Maria Schneider, the lady of "The last tango in Paris" -an actress who never got the fame and the recognition she deserved.

Cinematography is fantastic. But, above all, the big surprise of the film is the final shot: a 7-8 minutes take without cuts, absolute amazing. It's not describable, it's a must!

Michaelangelo Antonioni has been given a hard time by some critics, and even more so by audiences. His Blow Up is an art house classic, and Zabriskie Point is the film that the critics love to hate. The Passenger is his best film, but a total failure in commercial terms (probably because it asks a lot of the audience and only rewards viewers who give it multiple viewings).

The story behind the film is almost unimportant, in the way that the story behind Apocalypse Now is unimportant. It's a journey, a parade if you like through the last days of a disillusioned reporter working in some forgotten quarter of North Africa. He knows his life is pointless and he knows he's not lived it the way he truly wished he had. Then he finds a corpse in his hotel and decides to assume the identity of the dead man. Too late, he discovers that the dead man was involved with dangerous people and he has inadvertently become a revolutionary gunrunner.

Jack Nicholson has never given a more restrained and quiet performance, but it works all the same. The backdrop is amazingly beautiful and makes the film visually extraordinary, like a painting of a film.

I like this film a lot, but I can see reasons why it was a commercial disaster. I had to watch it three times before I began to piece together its elliptical plot. On each viewing, I found something new and interesting. But in all honesty, how many movie-goers are prepared to give a film that much time and effort? The ending is downbeat and a little intriguing, not to mention loose. Again, how many movie-goers are prepared to sit for two hours and not be rewarded with a grand, logical pay off? To enjoy this film, you need to be a patient watcher. You need to like visuals more than substance. You need to be happy to be challenged and happy to look beyond the surface. If that is you, then you will surely like this film.

Michelangelo Antonioni: The Passenger (Italy/France 1975). 128 minutes. Release by Sony Classics Pictures release. Release date: October 28, 2005. Shown at the New York Film Festival: October 8, 2005.

Thirty years later, Michelangelo Antonioni's re-released "The Passenger" is looking very good, and so are Jack Nicholson and Maria Schneider, as the journalist who takes a dead man's identity in the Sahara and the girl he meets in Barcelona who decides to tag along. David Locke (Nicholson) takes the passport of a man named Robertson who he's had a few drinks with in a hotel. Before that we see Locke experience frustration, giving away cigarettes to men in turbans who say nothing, abandoned by a boy guide, dumping a Land Rover stuck in the sand. Later we see films that show as a journalist he was subservient to bad men. Locke has Robertson's appointment book which leads him to Munich, then various points in Spain. He learns Robertson was a committed man taking risks: he sold arms to revolutionaries whose causes he thought were just. He gets a huge down-payment.

Then Locke's wife gets a tape of him talking to Robertson and his passport with Robertson's photo pasted into it -- and she gets the picture.

Changing your identity and using someone else's isn't just an existential act, it's also a criminal one. Locke's gambit is hopeless: he winds up fleeing from himself. The film skillfully gives its action story an existential underpinning. The chase keeps up a rapid pace, like the Bourne franchise, but it has time to contemplate Locke's old and new lives in a metaphorical story he tells Schneider about a blind man that explains how he ends up.

Antonioni is great at little incidentals -- a girl chewing bubblegum, a man reciting in a Gaudi building. And at the end, people coming and going in a desolate plaza outside a bullfighting amphitheater. The locations provide exotic glamor. The camera-work of course is wonderful. In retrospect now one can see this was definitely a culmination for Antonioni. He thought it technically his best film. This is the director's preferred European version, originally released as "Professione: Reporter."

We join David Locke (Jack Nicholson) at a particularly low point in his life. He is alone in the wilderness, lost and frustrated. Unhappy with his life, he discovers the corpse of a fellow hotel guest and promptly decides to take on the guy's identity.

"I'd like to enquire about flights," Locke asks a hotel clerk. He seeks to escape his past. Later in the film, as he rides a cable cart, Locke spreads his arms and soars like a bird. He's flying, finally enjoying a brief moment of freedom.

The theme of identity, and Locke's name itself, immediately recalls the writings of English philosopher John Locke. Locke believed in the concept of the "tabula rasa" or blank slate. He believed that it was our experiences that defined us as people and that the only way to escape who we are is to effectively erase our history and cut ourselves off from experiences.

Throughout his writings, Locke emphasised the individual's freedom to author his or her own soul. Each individual was free to define his character, but his basic identity as a member of the human species could not be altered. So Locke had two ideas at war. Firstly the belief that the individual was free to author his own life, and secondly the belief that human nature is rigid and unchangeable. It is from this presumption of a free, self authored mind, combined with a sense of rigid human nature, that the Lockean doctrine of "natural" rights is derived.

In Antonioni's film, Nicholson articulates these ideas himself. He is trapped between wanting to be free and having to fulfil duties/roles/tasks embedded in the new persona he has acquired. While responding to a comment that all PLACES are the same, he even argues that it's actually the PEOPLE that are the same. That everyone conforms to specific cultural archetypes. The film's original title, "Profession: Reporter", highlights this point best.

Nicholson's character is desperate to escape this. Like his character in "Five Easy Pieces", he wants some unmappable freedom. He wants to be an individual. Beyond this, though, he wants to stay blank. In what is perhaps the film's most joyous moment, a female character asks Locke what he's running from. He tells her to turn her back to the front of the car. What occurs next is an instant of spontaneous elation and giddy happiness, as she watches the road rush away behind them.

But what people fail to notice during this scene, is that she is in fact watching the past. By facing her previous experiences (which Locke refuses to do) she is happy. Happiness comes from her memories and past encounters, while Locke is miserable simply because he refuses to acknowledge his past experiences.

Throughout the film Locke is asked whether he thinks "the landscape" is beautiful. Once he answers "no", another time he absent mindedly answers "yes", but Antonioni stresses that Locke is really not paying attention. Locke intentionally avoids absorbing beauty or new experiences in an effort to remain in a constant state of rebirth.

These themes are culminated in a brilliant "blind man" story towards the end of the film. Locke, a journalist who specialises in seeing and recording the truth, is painfully attuned to what he calls the "dirt" of the world. As such, he chooses to remain blind. A blank slate.

Antonioni is particularly good at endings and the final shot of "The Passenger" really elevates the whole film. Like the dead man, whose identity he took on, Locke dies alone and face down in a bed. His ex wife pops up and states that she never knew him, but nobody seems to care.

9/10- A great film, worth two viewings. It captures a profound sense of isolation and sadness. Antonioni's camera seems to capture the immense tiredness of the body. Rather than portray experiences, he shows what remains of past experiences. He shows what comes afterwards, when everything has been said. The middle portion of the film is slow and seems to be lacking some sort of superficial drama, but things build nicely and the final payoff well is worth the wait.

One of Jack Nicholson's best but also least known films, `The Passenger' or `Professione: Reporter' is a haunting examination of the desire to escape and start afresh and is without doubt Antonioni's best English language film, eclipsing both `Blowup' and `Zabriskie Point'. Nicholson's role as a world-weary television journalist (David Locke) isn't a particularly demanding one but it is fascinating to see him give a performance so different from anything else we have seen from him and one which is much better than the horny little devil efforts he has sadly specialised in since `One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest'.

Some may find the opening twenty minutes of the film, where there is virtually no dialogue, hard-going but this perfectly illustrates the sparse and confusing environment of the North African desert where the film begins. We are also treated to a marvellous scene between Locke and the man whose identity he later assumes where a tape recording and flashback are ingeniously merged into one and then separated again. Antonioni creates a mood that is almost indefinable throughout, a kind of hollow detachment which is exactly the perspective that Locke has on the world which has gradually worn him down yet the director still manages to conjure up power and simple romance between Locke and the girl he meets who is played by Maria Schneider. The film was not a hit at the box-office which is not surprising considering it's uncommercial style but artistically and cinematically it is a triumph of innovation.

An excellent movie, with a young Jack Nicholson in the leading role, this is a story about a reporter who switches identities with a gun runner. It is a fascinating plot with many twists and turns but most of all, the cinematography is unsurpassed. It is shot in London, Germany and Northern Africa and is a joy to watch, evoking images from Lawrence of Arabia. I knew the director, Michelangel Antonioni, from film classics such as Blow -Up and Zabriskie Point, which attracted attention from 1960's cinema critics for interpreting the social scene of that period. The movie has minimal dialogue but is crafted scene by scene with great artistry. It is a movie that I can enjoy again quite easily.

This is from a feature I wrote 30 years ago, when 30 myself, on The Passenger for a now defunct London film magazine (Films Illustrated) where readers could discuss/analyse/deconstruct favourite movies (before the age of video and DVD!). I am revisiting it now that The Passenger is available again after a 20 year disappearance. However as I am limited to 1,000 words I have had to edit…

"The Passenger will remain a film of the mid '70s, as one of Antonioni's previous films, Blow-Up, remains a film for and symbolises the '60s. It also contains one of Jack Nicholson's definitive performances (along with Chinatown, The Last Detail and One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest) and has, perhaps, been a trifle overshadowed by these films all emerging within a short period of time of each other and the enormous publicity and word-of-mouth they have generated. But The Passenger has proved itself a strangely durable film and, like Chinatown, one that will remain around for a long time, both in the consciousness of its admirers and, one hopes, constant revivals.

Antonioni's third English-speaking film, The Passenger, like Blow-Up and Zabriskie Point, centres around the oblique, unresolved aspects of life. In Antonioni's films - as in life - there are no easy answers, things are not tidied up, explained, sorted out.

So it is with The Passenger. Jack Nicholson is Locke, an outwardly successful television journalist, but he also is being eaten away by his own disillusionment with the job and the value of his interviews, and that general malaise that affects Antonioni's people. When the film begins, we find him on location in Chad where his jeep breaks down and gets bogged in the sand. Locke breaks down and collapses on the sand as the camera pans away over the strange but beautiful desert panorama.

We next see Locke, in an advanced state of exhaustion, struggling back to his hotel and a cool shower, and discovering that the man in the next room, who looks rather like him, has died. We are very conscious of the stillness in the hotel - the blue walls, a fly buzzing, the noise of the fan, Locke staring intently at the dead man on the bed. We hear their dialogue of the previous evening and the aural flashback changes to a visual one by some very neat editing. Locke changes rooms, passport photos and luggage, and finds it quite easy to take on a new identity. How desperate his need is can be judged by his conversations back in Europe with the free, liberated girl (Maria Schneider) he meets up with. ("I used to be somebody else, but I traded him in"). She, incidentally, is freer than Locke could ever be.

It transpires Locke has taken over the identity of a gun-runner, Robertson. Perhaps it is best not to go into the plot in too much detail. Best all round just to pick out some of the marvellous moments along the way to the final breathtaking conceit. There's Locke, back in London, daringly visiting his old haunts - delighting in being someone else, but of course he isn't. Later on he is suspended in a cable car high about the ocean his arms outstretched like a bird in flight. Later still, the girl asks him what he is running from, and he tells her to turn around and we see what she sees - the road behind them.

By now, we the audience are caught up in this mesmerising film and its deliberations of he mysteries of identity. We are now totally involved in Locke's plight. He has given up one identity for another and becomes more and more helpless as the situation gets out of his control. Finally, in a remote Spanish hotel he can go no further, either as himself or as his new identity, as his wife and the gun-runners close in on him. One shouldn't spoil the last sequence for those still to see it, but it shows the only real freedom from identity and self is in death. The final scene shows us the aftermath: as the sun goes down, the hotel-keeper comes out for a walk, a woman sits in the doorway resting. For some people, who do not question their existence, the continuity of life goes on.

Antonioni, now in his sixties, is one of the great Italian directors who, like Fellini and Visconti, burst upon the international film scene in the late '50s. His trilogy of Italian films, L'Avventura, La Notte and L'Eclisse, and his first colour film The Red Desert (all with Monica Vitti) contributed to the renaissance of the European cinema. Then he switched to his English-speaking films, of which Blow-Up was the first. He is as much a master of landscape as John Ford was in his genre. He thinks nothing of painting whole streets or trees to get the effect he wants. Blow-Up is the only film from the whole, crazy period of Swinging London films that has not dated and which encapsulates what it was really all about. It remains one of the great films. Like Bergman, Bunuel or Fellini you either respond to his vision or reject it totally. His images linger on in the mind, his work never dates."

That is what part of what I wrote in 1976 and The Passenger indeed remains endlessly fascinating and particularly so now that it is available again. Even at the Antonioni retrospective in 2005 it was not available to include in the season, but we did have cast members Jenny Runacre and Steve Berkoff there to speak warmly of it's making and importance.

Let's hope a new generation will discover its timeless appeal, and amazingly Antonioni now in his 90s is still with us, if rather frail. A 2005 short of his was shown last year on the great statue of Moses in Rome and was also in its own way fascinatingly mysterious.

"The Passenger (Professione: reporter)" is a tour de force of visual story telling. While there is more dialog and the plot makes more sense than many other Michelangelo Antonioni films, it first and foremost uses film-making as a medium to tell its story.

The camera is always our eye, taking in sweeping panoramas of the North African desert to an architectural tour of European churches and an appreciation of the variegated urban and rural landscapes of Moorish Spain, still showing relics of older invasions, where it all comes together as we literally go from dust to dust. We are the passengers on this existential trip to try and change identities through someone else's travels logging almost as many locations as an outlandish Bond film .

Because so much of the film is dispassionately observational about natural landscape and cityscape, and windswept plazas that provide imitations of nature within a city, it stands up through time, even as the 1975 clothes, hair, TV journalist technology, and, somewhat, male/female relationships, look a bit dated and we can no longer assume that African guerrilla fighters and gun dealers helping them are more noble than the corrupt inheritors of colonialism.

The camera is constantly picking out culture contrasts - camels vs. jeeps, horse-drawn carriages blocking Munich traffic, Gaudi's serpentine architecture vs. Barcelona's modern skyline, a cable car gliding over a shimmering body of water.

And, of course, the very American Jack Nicholson in a very European film, with the many layers of meaning as he plays an adventurous broadcast reporter who ironically tries to escape the truth about himself. His young, sexy, challenging self is surprisingly effective here as we believe both his ethical lapses and his obsession.

Avoiding the narration that a film today would utilize, Antonioni well takes advantage of what now looks fairly primitive tapings of the reporter's past and current interviews to convey background and flashbacks on characters through minimal explication with overlapping sound and gliding visuals. The intertwined story lines constantly re-emphasize the point of not really knowing a person or a culture from the outside, with a repeated refrain of "What do you see?".

Maria Schneider's character skirts just this side of a male fantasy cliché, though Antonioni helped to create the type, and a few subtle plot points save her from total disingenuous sex kitten femme fatale (even as her character shrugs that one plot point is "unlikely"). Nicholson's repeated refrain to her of "What the f* are you doing with me?" takes on different meanings as we know more.

I'm not sure if this 2005 re-release of the director's cut, with supposedly nine minutes that were not in the original U.S. release, is notably pristine, as it wasn't particularly sharp, but the director's trademark crystalline blue sky is still breathtaking and is a must-see in a full screen rather than on DVD. The views practically feel like the old Cinemascope.

A climactic landscape shot brings all the violent, sensual, philosophical and narrative plot and thematic points together in a marvelous way that has been much imitated but is still powerful, as the camera looks out a window at a cool distance in the heat, key events culminate back and forth frantically in front of the camera, in and out of frame, and the camera moves through the bars and is free to roam in ever more close-ups.

I haven't seen the film for quite a while but I still remember it as one of the greatest movies I have ever seen. In my memory the last scene is an incredible, uncut take of about ten minutes in which Jack Nickolson is simply waiting in a hotel room. The shot starts with the camera in the room, then it moves through the window (right through some iron bars as I recall) to make a very slow flight above an almost deserted square outside (there is a small driving school vehicle riding round and round.) Meanwhile another car approaches, some people get out and go in the hotel, the camera stays out while we hear these people walking up the stairs, entering the room and then a shot. When the people come out of the hotel and get in their car the camera makes a loop back into the room again. Almost nothing happens in sight, but nevertheless -or maybe because of that, the suggestion- it is such a wonderful shot, it's hard to describe, it is a 'must see'.

Unfortunately the movie is not yet available on dvd. Is there anybody who knows if and when it will be?

I just saw this movie last night on the big screen as part of the re-release. Without a doubt, this is a great movie. I knew nothing about it going in, except that Jack was in a movie by the guy who did Blow-Up...needless to say, the film lacks the chic swinging London vibe of Blow- Up however is much more effective in terms of playing out an ambiguous mystery and Jack gives a remarkable, subdued performance. Keep in mind when seeing this film that it is sloooooooow, but the payoffs are well worth it (highly recommended to see on the big screen). Antonioni is incredibly assured behind the camera and lets the story play out in its own time. The way the story is revealed is like a trail of lost breadcrumbs that the audience is given only when it is absolutely starving for something. Once they are given, those crumbs turn into succulent, nourishing slices of (insert favorite food here). The last scene, for me, was worth ten times the price of admission. That which is inevitable is the most haunting.

Jack Nicholson plays a television reporter so exhausted and overwhelmed by life that he fakes his own death and assumes another man's identity. Unfortunately, that new role is tangled in more political tripwires than a moth in a spiderweb and he's almost immediately navigating some very tricky waters. Extremely vacant storytelling is the rule of the day here, with a Camus-like degree of passivity. In retrospect, or particularly during the great climax that closes the film, it becomes clear that there are a surprising number of independently moving pieces key to the plot. The problem is in how casually they sneak up on the viewer. For all its cinematic beauty, deep existential ruminations and whirling asides, this is a very dull, slow-moving picture that's painfully deliberate at times. That ultimately makes it inaccessible to most and largely unrewarding to those who stick with it to the end. Of course, the famed single-cut panorama at the very end is a true revelation - it elegantly snips away every remaining plot thread in a delicate, mesmerizing display of technique - but seven minutes of perfection isn't enough to overcome the preceding two hours of bland dawdling.

Having heard about this film for years, I finally had the opportunity to watch it on DVD last night. I only wish I'd seen it years ago so I could have spent the last 34 years telling everyone I know how brilliant it is. Yes, the concluding scene (shot) is everything that it has been cracked up to be, but what astonished me even more was how Antonioni was able to wrench such a brilliant performance from both Maria Schneider and, even more impressively, Jack Nicholson. Watching this film with our 21 year-old son, whose main Nicholson reference points have been developed only in the last 10 years or so, we had to explain that, yes, in his day, Nicholson could actually act with restraint and subtlety. But never more so than in this film.

We watched it twice in succession and even the second time around it was a remarkable experience. The other reviews on IMDb offer plenty of insightful analysis. But do watch it twice.

If you had to see this movie three times to figure it out then you weren't paying attention! I'm astonished at the number of reviewers/posters who did not know who the girl was. Where were you when Locke was checking into the hotel towards the end of the movie, when he is told by the hotel clerk that Mrs Robertson had arrived earlier, and that he (the clerk) doesn't need to see Locke/Robertson's passport because "one is enough"? So "the girl" has shown a passport that identifies her as Mrs. Robertson, thus explaining why she was in London, then Barcelona, and why she behaved so strangely and evasively around Locke, a stranger wearing her husband's clothes (she does not know initially that her husband is dead.) She obviously was trying to figure out what was going on, and was not some "free spirit" who took up with Locke by chance. I saw this movie thirty years ago and I'm very happy to see that it has resurfaced, it is excellent.

I stopped about 30 minutes in (and was later told by my family - they saw the whole thing - that I was right to do so, it wasn't worth it). This film meanders along, with gaps between dialogue, no music and a slow plot. It was boring and didn't grab my attention. The plot was potentially interesting, but they didn't do anything with it to make it particularly gripping.

It made me drowsy, it made me sleepy and I couldn't wait to leave. When the first half hour is that weak, it doesn't make the rest of the movie look very promising. Overall, I think this movie is overrated and felt like it was unfinished from what I saw. Obviously, I didn't finish the movie, but in terms of production, it felt unfinished. It felt like a raw copy before release. Without music and/or some more gripping dialogue it feels empty.

Almost ten years after the heady successes of Blow-Up (1966), revered Italian director Michelangelo Antonioni found himself in the North African desert with Jack Nicholson and Maria Schneider, shooting a strange, lyrical, flawed yet beautiful lovers-on-the-run film. That film was The Passenger (1975).

Before I talk about the film itself, lets take a little time to look at one of the most interesting aspects of its recent history; its almost total disappearance from our screens, of any kind. Jack Nicholson bought the original negative from MGM in 1983. For many years following this, the film was made available to the public for screenings only at which the director himself would be present. No television, home video or any other kind of broadcast was permitted. With Antonioni being a frail, elderly man rarely well enough to travel to global festivals, this meant the film was all but lost for an eager audience. Luckily, however a new print of The Passenger has recently been released prior to a long-awaited DVD release.

Antonioni has been almost unique in his determination to leave the cinematic frame sparse, empty of any external distractions. Even in Blow-Up, set in the colourful London of the swinging 60s, a time where the city was at its most alive and chaotic, there is rarely anything on screen beyond the absolute necessary. The Passenger is perhaps the greatest marriage between the story and the director's reserved style.

It begins in North Africa. Nicholson plays a journalist named Locke seeking out rebel fighters to interview somewhere in the dusty heat of North Africa. No dialogue is contained within the opening scenes, Locke does not understand the local language and people are forced to gesticulate wildly with makeshift sign language. He returns to his hotel, where there is only one other guest. Finding this man dead, Nicholson swaps identity with the corpse. There is no discernible reason for this decision - trained by more standard Hollywood fare, we might expect him to be on the run from the police, or maybe he owes a huge sum of money to the mob? Here, there is nothing. He simply takes the dead man's passport and wears his clothes.

Along his journey he meets a young girl (Schneider), who accompanies him in the American convertible rolling through the desert. As their travels continue the girl (she is given no name in the film) becomes frustrated with Locke's lack of direction. Thinking he has assumed the identity of another to give his life some sense of purpose, some meaning, she does not understand Locke's seemingly passive drifting. They are always in motion, but never going to or from anywhere in particular.

The film ends with one of the most impressive crane shots in cinema. A seven-minute single take that lingers in the viewer's mind like a childhood memory of a skilled conjurer's card-trick. Locke is in another seedy hotel bedroom, he falls back on to the bed, exhausted. There is a window, the world outside separated by iron bars. The camera inches slowly forward. We see a vast, dusty vista, a few cracked houses, an old man is left against a wall like an unused puppet, a child throws a ball, a dog sniffs the ground, a Fiat 500 ambles in and out of shot, perhaps it is a driving lesson we wonder and suddenly we realise we are now outside. We have passed through the window and its iron bars. Exactly when this feat took place is hard to pin down. Also outside is Schneider, who watches as two men, men we recognise, emerge from another car. We continue forward, taking in everything that is happening in the hotel. Eventually we found ourselves back outside Locke's room, looking in at the now inert body. Murdered.

The Passenger is a hard film to describe, so reliant on images and themes and completely devoid of the usual plot and character motivations as it is. It is however, not a hard film to recommend. The unfortunate quarter-of-a-century hiatus it has been placed under has left it re-invigorated for a new audience. A new audience it so richly deserves.

First off, I'd like to complain about this film's lack of availability. It has been on VHS before, and in this format I rented it. It is not available now, though. It deserves to be on DVD. And if its director is not a good enough reason (Michelangelo Antonioni), it contains a masterful performance by Jack Nicholson, who has a very large fan base. He has done so much great work in his career, and The Passenger is among his very best, right up there with Chinatown and The Shining.

Anyway, to discuss the merits of this film: well, it is in a style much akin to Michelangelo Antonioni's more famous films, especially Blowup. Thus the average viewer will find it about as interesting as staring at a blank screen. European art films often are not goal-oriented, i.e., there is not a goal set up near the beginning of the film that the characters are trying to achieve until the end. The Passenger is a perfect example. It actually teases those who are used to goal-oriented films by setting up a very intriguing premise, one that could have worked wonders for a Hitchcock film (in fact, it is somewhat reminiscent of North by Northwest in its plot): a man, Jack Nicholson, bored with his own life, decides to trade his in for the life of another man who has just died. Nicholson looks like the dead man, and the dead man had told him that he was basically a loner. This turns out not to be true. The dead man was an illegal arms dealer, selling weapons to rebels in Africa. The police, spies, and Nicholson's friends from his previous life are all after him.

Wow, exciting, huh? Nope, not exactly. Antonioni is a great artist and has bigger themes to strive for.

I have been studying Antonioni for a while now, although his films are so hard to find that my studies have not gotten all that far. Nevertheless, let me share an observance or two. (slight SPOILERS ahead)

Characters in Antonioni films have a tendency to disappear. Anna from L'Avventura being the immediate example, I believe that she vanished on purpose. Not that I believe she got on a boat or committed suicide. I think she simply willed herself into nonexistence. Her life was going nowhere, and she wanted desperately to nullify her relationship with her boyfriend, Sandro. Thomas, the hotshot fashion photographer of Blowup, also decides to disappear, in my opinion (see my review of that film). He felt that his life had no point, also.

Now here is David Locke (Nicholson). He is a liberal, perhaps fashionably-liberal British reporter/documentarian (although he speaks with an American accent, for he was "educated there;" certainly the most ridiculous part of the film was this adhoc explanation) who is doing an expose/documentary on Africa's political climate. He plays by the rules of reporting, only dropping subtle hints about the goverment's corruption in his interviews while he certainly knows the truth of the situation. He proves himself a hypocrite in a couple of scenes, also, when he admits to Robertson, the man who will die and trade places with Locke, that he has no clue how to communicate with them (Robertson, an arms dealer, says simply that he offers them goods, and they understand that). There is also an amazing scene where we see Locke interview an African folk doctor who had

studied in Europe. He asks the man if he does and how he can still believe in his folk remedies when he has studied in a more sophisticated area of the world. The man replies, "You know, I believe your questions demonstrate more about you than my answers will demonstrate about me. Here, give me your camera, and I will record you asking those same questions." We see Nicholson's nervous face as his own camera is turned towards him, but we do not see him do what the man asked.

When he trades places with Robertson, he becomes the arms dealer. His goal had been to just escape his own life and maybe exist indifferently towards the world, but now he jumps into someone else's life whose role in life is actually to do something about these African situations that Locke was almost pretending to care about.

It becomes more intriguing as it goes on. I don't want to say everything, and, alas, I am not finished interpreting it in my mind as of yet. I am giving the film a 9/10.

A film of such melancholy and quiet beauty, yet never boring or pretentious, and with a Jack Nicholson that shows that his range as an actor goes far beyond his more famous, over-the-top performances. Superb. 8 stars out of 10.

In case you're interested in more underrated masterpieces, here's some of my favorites:

imdb.com/list/ls070242495

For such an enigmatic movie, Professione: Reporter features a thematically well-treaded path. A young, slim Jack Nicholson in an understated performance, sans the familiar shark's grin, plays David Locke, a celebrated, respected, British-born, American-educated international reporter whose life has lost all sense of purpose (this is Antonioni after all!). On finding a British arms dealer he knew now freshly dead in his hotel room in an unnamed, remote African location, Locke decides to take on the other man's identity, and make the world believe that David Locke, the journalist, is dead. Why he does this is never explained, though one can easily intuit it. Ultimately, it doesn't really matter, though one can guess it may have something to do with self-loathing (the bitter irony is that taking on an arms dealer's identity is hardly more honourable!). In one memorable sequence, Locke's wife Rachel (who now believes herself to be a widow) is watching a piece of footage featuring Locke interviewing an unnamed African leader. It stands out as one of the most acerbic polemics on journalism ever filmed. In it, the camera is turned back onto Locke by his African interviewee after the latter loses his patience with the reporter's narrow-minded, Eurocentric vision, betrayed by his lazy, formulaic questions. The artifice of Locke's profession (which on the contrary ought to be a search for truth) is fully exposed in this scene, as well as Locke's increasing disillusionment with his purpose in life.

Despite its power and polemic against journalism, Professione: Reporter is also an understated movie from start to finish, made for a grown-up audience. Nothing is spelt out for you. However, the movie is strewn throughout with powerful and evocative visual clues, so it's nonetheless up to you as an attentive viewer to pick up (the early scene of Locke's Jeep getting stuck in the African desert sand, anyone?), or even soak them up unconsciously. As with all Antonioni, every shot in this movie is worthy of analysis and admiration. Bergman once said about the Italian that he could create some arresting individual images, but was incapable of stringing them all together in the sequence of a palatable movie: sorry Ingmar, old man - as much as I feel in awe of your craft, you're talking nonsense, here. However, I can't believe Antonioni once had the cheek to say he improvises each scene as he goes along (see his IMDb quotes page). There isn't a chance in hell these meticulously crafted, immaculately framed and composed movies are not also carefully premeditated. Clearly, Antonioni was trying to start a myth about himself along the lines of the one about Mozart composing his music straight onto the page, as dictated by God. In Professione: Reporter, I was especially in awe of the sequence involving the single long take from the window of Locke's last hotel room in an unnamed, dusty Spanish village. Regarding Maria Schneider, it truly is a shame she wasn't the star in a greater number of successful movies. Her ambiguity makes it very difficult to keep one's eyes off her when she's on screen. She looks like a cross between a boy, a girl and something cutely ape-like (I mean it in a good way!).

I would like to warn viewers of the inclusion of footage of a real execution - again, this was a film within the film. Personally, I found it very disturbing, which is why I'm mentioning it here.

To paraphrase a famous Orson Welles quote, what is there to say about a movie?

Obviously a lot in most cases, and sometimes nothing at all, but how much of what we say can hope to encapsulate a movie as it is? This is the problem of memory, inherited by cinema. How can memory hope to recall the world as it were? I'm not just waxing here. What I mean is this: how can we communicate what we like about a movie, essentially? That is, to give something back that we have gleamed, rather than simply take from it, something which is a true reflection of what we have seen, a true perception of that reflection of the world seen by the artist's eye.

Antonioni's movie brings me to this doublebind, not because it's a blank canvas filled with the inscrutable and peremptory (for that reason, also the eternal), but because it's filled with so much life as I know it to be true. The simple profound joy I get from it is the awakening of the senses, sensing the world with the entire body. A draught from an open window, the scorching heat reflecting from the stones of a dusty Andalusian village, the echo of footsteps reverberating in a giant hall, this is why the film enthralls me. Not the dazzling Gaudi rooftop in Barcelona, which is spectacle, but the ordinary rooftop across the street with laundry in a hangwire fluttering in the wind.

In a few scattered instances, Antonioni ruminates about life through his characters, but it feel superfluous, because what can the mind say that is true in the presence of the sensing body?

The film closes with a famous long shot slowly tracking out of a window. Outside, we can see life play out in all its quiet, meaningful, mundanity. This is the film for me, the awareness of a sense of place and a sense of time. Meaning I am in this place and time passes, and the simple solace that follows it. Or maybe this. A character standing in a verandah in a dusty forgotten part of Africa, looks out at the vastness of desert and says it feels like it's waiting for something. The film waits, but not for a god to make his presence felt like in a Bergman movie, but rather waits, come what may. Metaphysical questions are rather absent, or mute. The world is then a playground of possibilities, where new personalities and new guises can be adopted, where exciting espionage games with arm traffickers can be enacted.

Jack Nicholson is not up to this, though he will have to do. He's not his crazy self, but when he wearily ruminates or even walks he can't help but have that natural smirk of the smug bastard. The quiet dignity of an Alain Delon would elevate the movie.

I make it seem like The Passenger only observes, but that's not quite so. In the amazing opening, Antonioni gives us a full character with just a few sketches of camera. How the American hopes to make his presence felt in this strange African land, now offering cigarettes or trying to teach a boy the word "left", when that presence is barely acknowledged. An African in a camel passing him by doesn't even aknowledge his presence in the same desert.

Back to the conundrum expressed above, all this may be true for me, but does it describe the movie you saw or are about to?

By way of answer, an anecdote which I believe resonates deeply inside the film; it tells the story of a Confucian scholar who came up to Bodhidharma, the 28th patriarch of Buddhism, and asked him to pacify his soul. "Produce it and I will pacify it", was Bodhidharma's reply. The Confucian said, "That is my trouble, I cannot find it". And Bodhidharma said, "Your wish is granted".

Something to meditate upon while watching this.

"The Passenger" is a fascinating movie, a cinematic and philosophical masterpiece. I love Antonioni, and this is one of his best. I have watched it several times through the years, each time opening for myself a new moment or a new meaning. The acting is superb, and so is the camera work. The final scene that lasts for seven minutes without anything really happening is sublime. There is also a deep philosophical theme in the movie, uniquely different from other films of the time that also show dissatisfied, lost, or marginalized characters.

Much has been written about the existential symbolism of the film, and it certainly pervades it on a grand scale. However, there is an interesting aspect of this movie which sets it apart from other existentialist works. In a Sartre-like view, a man is alienated from reality and does not feel welcome in the world nor connected with mankind. But in "The Passenger", it is David Locke's own life that is actually hostile to him. Let me try to explain what I mean. Like many people, he is trying to run away from mundane reality, the job that has been making him jaded, the marriage that's lost its flame. However, instead of making piecemeal changes, he tries to replace his life as a whole – reject it and become someone else. And now it is life itself that's after him, ready to punish him for violating the rules of engagement. It's as if he is just a vessel owned by life, which destroys him as soon as he tries to take matters in his own hands.

At some point in the movie David says that he used to be somebody else, but traded him in (by the way, what a fabulous line). He boasts – he thinks he is in control of his life choices, but will soon find out otherwise. What crushes him in the end is not fate or circumstances or his past that catches up with him – it is life itself, ejecting an unruly passenger. Such juxtaposition of life with a man as a separate, all-powerful entity is unique in the artistic portrayal of existential struggle.

The original title of the movie (in Italian) was "Profession: Reporter". This title would have made perfect sense if the character was an estranged observer of life. However, Jack Nicholson's character is truly a passenger – he is not in the driver's seat, and his privileges are pretty limited. His connection to life is neither cordial nor caring, the same way as there is no human connection between a train passenger and the train operator. David Locke has violated the rules, and his ticket is canceled. The train will continue forward without him.

Captivating and mysterious Maria Schneider plays The Girl. As David jumps from one city to another, he keeps running into her. She is quite an ephemeral character, floating from place to place, seemingly not attached to any mundane or conventional activity like work or family. Having no name in the movie suits her character perfectly – one less connection to real life. Perhaps this is the only kind of people who David can interact with now and who can deal with him. When the police ask David's wife to identify his dead body, she says she doesn't know him. It is true – he has become a complete stranger to her. But when they ask the girl if she knows David, she says yes. Even though they have met only recently, they seem to be people of the same kind. Perhaps like him, the girl is also a passenger? Perhaps we all are.

This is one excellent film. The modern day Jack Nicholson has become such a caricature that we forget some of his best work was done as a young man. I've never heard how he hooked up with Anonioni. The film is both lush and stark. The desert scenes are so cold and depressing. Nicholson's character comes back to the hotel after a battle with Saharan sand and finds another "reporter" dead. Coincidentally they are very close in appearance and Nicholson, who is full of angst and ennui, decides to trade places with the dead man, taking on his identity. Going rogue, he finds himself in league with some really bad people. With the help of Maria Schneider ("Last Tango in Paris"), he manages to stay ahead of both his wife (who thought he was dead) and those who would do him harm. At least for a while. The cinematography is quite astounding here. The movie makes one uncomfortable, because there is the tension that occurs when possible identification is around every corner. To me, this is quite an amazing product of one of Italy's most creative directors.

David Locke (an unusually understated Jack Nicholson), a journalist making a reportage in Africa, is tired of his life and perhaps of himself; when a person he had just met dies, David pretends to be him and goes on with the dead man's mysterious life.

This could have been the plot of an airport novel, but, like in l'Avventura, in Antonioni the "giallo" side of the story is merely the premise.

Locke is frustrated by being unable to see beyond the surface of people and situations, and decides to start over again as Robertson; however, much like the blind man of the final anecdote, he ultimately finds no relief. His perspective is limited, his experience haunted by problems of both his old life (his wife pursuing him) and his new one (people hunting for him).

The moment in which he is finally able to transcend his narrow point of view is death. In an astounding piece of film-making, a long, elegant single take, the camera leaves an exhausted David lying in the bed of a sordid hotel in a town in the middle of nowhere, follows the key events taking place outside and symbolically slides through the window grates in the moment of the murder, finally freeing David from his own existence.

Also fascinating is the use Antonioni makes of colors. A sequence at the beginning shows a bright blue car stalling in the midst of the stark orange of the desert. For the rest of the movie blue/white on one hand and orange/red on the other are symbolically linked, respectively, to David's new life/desire to escape and to his past (and Robertson's) catching up with him.

-Blue/white: the rooms of the hotel in which the identities are switched, the dead man's shirt which David wears, the sea of Barcelona over which David appears to loom over in a memorable shot, the Girl's dresses and luggage, the car on which they travel.

-Orange/red: These tones are dominant at the beginning (the desert), almost disappear during the middle act of the picture, then reappear in the last part as David's fate comes in full circle, re-emerging in the landscape in which the car breaks down. When the murder takes place, a young kid wearing a bright red shirt enters the screen running, symbolically sealing David's fate.

9/10

That being said, a two hour film such as this, starring such undeniably superb talent such as Jack Nicholson and Maria Sheider, shouldn't move THIS slow, or feel like it anyway. I'm not saying the pace Antonionni places is entirely deliberate, but there were moments when I wondered when the film would pick up some of the suspense considering the weight of the situations Nicholson's character was in. Of course, this is not to downplay the overall effect that Antonionni and his crew give on a film like this: a lot of times his style of the wandering camera, or of a camera staying still on an object, is entrancing, even hypnotic, and one shot towards the very end is one of the best in all of movie history. The slowness does feel slow, but on a repeat viewing one gets the sense that there is tension, almost in the vein of Melville, where not much is said but there's a lot to be said about what's not being said. Sartre would be proud.

He uses his skills to tell a story of a journalist in Africa (Nicholson, doing what he can naturally do) who discovers a man he knew in a hotel is dead of a heart attack, and for reasons that are or are not quite explained, he takes his identity. What he doesn't realize, at least until he leaves for Spain, is that the man's persona was that of a gun runner. The Passenger gives much to watch for the avid and non-avid film goer- a curious, often sullen and downplayed performance by Mr. Nicholson(outside of a outburst moment in the desert); a side role that isn't as heavy but is as noteworthy for Ms. Sheider; and a style that is unquestionably of tremendous skill and potency. And yet, on a first viewing it's own self-image gets distracting. Perhaps this is one of those films that requires more than one viewing to let it all sink in...and this being said, it will be well worth it to seek out on DVD, if not in the theaters where it's had a short re-release run. It did make it more worth my while, with Antonioni's shots laid up on a big screen. 9/10