Escaping with Jack Nicholson

Michelangelo Antonioni's The Passenger (1975) stars Jack Nicholson as a reporter who mysteriously decides to switch identities with a dead arms dealer he casually met who died in the same hotel he was staying. Nicholson doesn't take the dead man's identity for any journalistic reasons, but simply to have new start. This may sound like an intriguing plot, but as in most Antonioni movies, plot is not something he concerns himself with. I appreciate directors who don't give a lot of exposition, but it will take much patience from an audience member to mine the vast emptiness of this film.

The motivation of Nicholson's character nor of Maria Schneiders is ever apparent, they are drifters, one running from his past and the other perhaps running toward her future. Antonioni somehow seems to create a world that is both vast in stature but at the same time small as in one can't escape their past no matter how remote the location your hiding is. It strikes me that Antonioni judging by the two films of his I have seen so far (this and La Adventura) is obsessed with loneliness or maybe more specifically our inability to cope with ourselves. Despite the downfalls of this movie, these thematic elements are consistent throughout the film, and they do convey to the audience a tone to relate too.

There are two surprisingly negative attributes to The Passenger that must be discussed. The first is in the cinematography, everyone mentions the impressive last shot, and it is somewhat impressive (the camera just goes through some bars that move) but more so in content than in its technical prowess. Throughout the film we have awkward frames where characters are half in and half out. There is excessive head room and camera bumps throughout. The film works, but I expected better from a master filmmaker,instead I got what looks like a very good student filmmaker who got his hands on some equipment.

The second and even more surprising unfortunate element is in Nicholsons performance. Its not that it is bad its just not very good. He doesn't have very much dialogue but when he does you can see him struggling to convey it, almost as if Jack Nicholson the actor didn't quit understand what his characters motivations where and why he was saying what he was saying. Maria Schneider on the other hand came off nicely, with a sense of ease and understanding of her character. I was not familiar with Schneiders work previous to this film, but I will keep an eye out for her moving forward.

The Passenger does do a lot wrong, but maybe it is to Antonioni's credit that despite its flaws it works as a whole. It sets a tone and doesn't apologize for it, leaving the audience to think (about what is up to each one of us).

**1/2