I don't know if folks were all movied-out from the Film Fest over the weekend or whether everyone went to see The Passenger last week, but I was the only person in the audience. This is too bad as The Passenger is a wonderful, if difficult, film. I should also mention that the version shown was the European cut. Director Michelangelo Antonioni originally edited a 4-hour film but brought in an outside editor who got it down to about two and a half hours. The studio, MGM, demanded something under two hours. And so Americans got a 118 minute version while the rest of the world apparently got one about 5 minutes longer. The version making the rounds now is the one with the extra 5 minutes. (The one scene I know to have been added is when Locke returns to his London home to find that his wife has been fooling around on him.)
The plot involves David Locke, played by Jack Nicholson, who is a reporter in a North African country trying to get the inside scoop on the rebels there. He fails to do this and returns to his hotel. He goes to the room of a fellow European named Robertson and finds that he's dead. Wishing to escape the drudgery of his mundane life, Locke assumes the man's identity. Robertson turns out to be an arms dealer and Locke plays along at first which means he runs into a lot of cash. The film moves us from Africa to Germany and Spain. At its core, the film is about Locke running away and being chased, as in a typical thriller, but it's more existential. The Passenger is more about a man running away from himself than it is about eluding bad guys.
Along the way we get to see some great panoramic views of the desert in which Land Rovers and camels cross paths and a great example of Moorish architecture set against the more modern Spanish cityscape. A bit like a visual version of Dos Passos' Camera Eye. The ending is a classic as well. Locke lays prostrate on a bed with the camera facing out a large barred window. It slowly moves towards the window and we see The Girl, Locke's former companion whom he told to leave him just a minute before. She races back and forth while cars enter and leave the frame. The camera moves through the window and it winds its way around the area in front of the hotel as government agents come looking for Locke as well as police with Locke's wife who has been seeking him out. Doing a 180, the camera moves back to the window from whence it came and we see that Locke is dead.
Time flows smoothly in The Passenger. Flashbacks aren't abruptly thrown into the mix. In one scene as Locke sits in his African hotel room and prepares to become, Robertson, we begin to hear the two of them talking. The camera pans to the patio outside the window and we see Robertson and Locke walking into the frame. Being a reporter, Locke had his trusty 16mm camera with him and we are often shown that footage as if it were happening. Then a cut reveals that it is being played back in London on a small viewer. The Passenger is a difficult film but one that is open to about a billion interpretations. It gives you a base from which to start and then lets the viewer build impressions from the sweeping vistas, the juxtaposition of old & modern, and the gentle pacing of the story. Plus there are the repeated questions. Locke asks The Girl more than once, "What the fuck are you doing with me?" When asked the first time, she leaves him but he manages to regain her company. But, at the end, when he asks again and she leaves permanently, well, it becomes a terminal question. Windows are a thematic device as well. When the Girl looks out of one, Locke asks, "What do you see?" She would answer quite literally by describing the people and things taking place outside. Locke, however, was probably more concerned with looking inside and could just never find the right window.
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