PFA Michelangelo Antonioni – The Passenger

Michelangelo Antonioni – The Passenger

Jack Nicholson in Michelangelo Antonioni’s “The Passenger,” stars as David Locke, a British journalist covering the civil war in instable parts of Africa. When an acquaintance, David Robertson, suddenly dies of a questionable heart attack, Locke spontaneously swaps identities, perhaps to leave his lost burnt out life. While assuming the mysterious Robertson’s life, Locke follows Robertson’s appointment book only to discover his new identity is a gunrunner for the African rebels. Locke makes one last visit to his previous life before he escapes and embarks on Robertson’s life. Upon his travels, he meets a young mysterious woman who seems like a wanderer with no direction. She accompanies him on his journey, urging him to continue Robertson’s fight with the rebels against tyrannical rule. However, unsure of his actions, Locke continually runs from both his past life, as his cheating wife and producer search for him, and pursuing African agents, unbeknownst to Locke. As the pursuers catch up to Locke, he also meets his untimely fate.

“The Passenger” starts out with almost no dialogue and often times eerily silences filled with little background sounds. I have never seen a film in which the director continually zooms or pans out from the characters to focus on the surrounding setting or landscape. In many scenes, Antonioni pulls out to situate the viewer in the desolate African deserts, the winding turns and hills of Spain, the bustling cityscape, or focusing on settings outside windows and impending events unknown to Locke. In addition, Antonioni portrays past events in an interesting manner. Rather than cutting or using a flashback blur, he leaves the present characters in the same scene as the past events. In an earlier part of the film, Locke recalls a conversation he had with Robertson occurring as he is sitting at his desk. The camera then pans left toward a balcony in which both Locke and Robertson were conversing with each other. As the camera pans back to Locke at his desk, we discover the conversation occurring was from a recorder. In another scene, Antonioni shows Locke’s wife looking out a window, witnessing Locke crazily burning a pile of branches. As the camera cuts to down to Locke’s level of perception, his wife remains in the upstairs window and another woman worryingly runs out screaming at Locke. We later realize that the worried woman was Locke’s wife and the events occurring took place in the past. His wife in the window is in the present realm reminiscing about the fiasco.

I enjoyed the film’s long drawn out scenic shots. However, sometimes I found the movie too slow and not very stimulating. At times, I felt as if I was wandering along with the characters, confused about which direction to be heading in their journey. Overall, I still enjoyed the film.

-Benjamin Louie