NEW REVIEW!!
THE PASSENGER
(1975, dir. Michelangelo Antonioni)

Arden ♥s the movie!

And so the Antonioni retrospective wraps up at BAM with The Passenger starring Jack Nicholson and Maria Schneider. Antonioni made this film almost 10 years after Blow-Up which I didn't like earlier this month. While I wanted to poke my eye out during most of that film, I completely relished Antonioni's stagnant style and sarcastically existential tone in The Passenger. There are a number of possible reasons this was the case.

First of all, the main character, David Locke (played by a WONDERFULLY understated Jack Nicholson) was immensely more empathetic to me than David Hemming's yawn-inducing self-centered fashion photographer. Locke is a reporter stranded in the North African desert who, without any kind of motivation, swaps identities with a dead guy named Robertson. Locke, now Robertson, embarks on a quasi-globe-trotting... well, suffice it to say, he just escapes from his life. And there was nothing wrong with his life. He's successful. He has a pretty wife. He's fine. And yet, he abandons it all to become a complete stranger at least for a little while. Nicholson is so excellent in this film. He brings out his signature snarkiness whenever Locke has to weasel his way out of a Robertson situation. But for the most part, he turns in a downright demure performance of a man who wants what we all want deep down. To just fucking disappear.

Next, in Blow-Up, Hemming's muted conversations with Vanessa Redgrave seemed to materialize out of thin air and then disappear as if they has no importance whatsoever. Nicholson and the impossibly present Maria Schneider (Last Tango in Paris) share a repartee that's weighted with symbolism but, thanks Schneider's capricious line readings and Nicholson's rakish charm, their dialogue resonates with an indecipherable lyricism. This ends up reinforcing rather than detracting from the overall theme of The Passenger: Escaping from your life means bringing your bad habits with you. I firmly believe that, in an American film, the fugitive would be punished for abandoning his responsibilities or eventually discover some sort of fufillment in his materialistic acheivements. In America, we define ourselves by what we own, possess and surround ourselves with. One of the morals of this brushstroke parable is what defines you is your interactions with other people and your base nature as a rational thinking creature. Not your name and passport.

Lastly, I found the composition and execution of this film FANTASTIC. There are shots that I have no idea how, technically, Antonioni acheived them. They were absolutely sick. I was impressed with this in Blow-Up as well but here (and I suppose a decade of filmmaking will do this to you) the director's command and choices are staggering. While narratively the film never resolves itself as a conventional linear film would, most cinephiles will not mind. Antonioni's sequences are either as arresting as a painting or make you chuckle with a subversive humor. It's probably a good first movie of his to see if you are thinking of introducing yourself to him. It's got a big American star. It's fun as well as challenging.

I also didn't see it with a FLIPPING DICKHEAD!

Bottom Line: Technically and cerebrally beautiful film. You will not like it if you aren't ready to live in it.