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The Passenger
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List Price: $19.94
Our Price: $14.49
Your Save: $ 5.45 ( 27% )
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Manufacturer: Sony Pictures
Starring: Jack Nicholson, Maria Schneider, Jenny Runacre, Ian Hendry, Steven Berkoff
Directed By: Michelangelo Antonioni
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
Audience Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Binding: DVD
Brand: Sony
EAN: 0043396126541
Format: Color
Label: Sony Pictures
Manufacturer: Sony Pictures
Number Of Items: 1
Publisher: Sony Pictures
Region Code: 99
Release Date: 2006-04-25
Running Time: 126
Studio: Sony Pictures
Theatrical Release Date: 1975-04-09
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Editorial Reviews:
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A burned-out journalist assumes the identity of a dead man and embarks on a dangerous charade, including meetings with gun runners and an affair with a mysterious young woman. Originally released in 1975, Sony Pictures Classics re-releases Antonioni's suspenseful and haunting portrait of a drained journalist whose deliverance is an identity exchange with a dead man. He embarks on a treacherous journey through Africa, Spain, Germany, England, Spain.
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating: 
Summary: Excellent
Comment: Michelangelo Antonioni's 1975 film, The Passenger (Professione: Reporter in Europe, and at one time called Fatal Exit), written by Antonioni, Peter Wollen, and Mark Peploe, is a terrific film that falls just shy of some of his truly great films like La Notte, L'Eclisse, and Blowup. That's because, despite Antonioni's usual visual brilliance, daring use of silences, and a unusually reserved performance from Jack Nicholson- one that is a bit of true acting, from long before he started phoning in performances; it is mild, void of memorable tics or quotes (save a humorous taking of Christ's name in vain in a German church that he reflexively apologizes to the air for, such as in One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, The Shining, or Batman), the film grinds to an emotional and narrative halt whenever Maria Schneider (no relation) appears onscreen. Simply put, she's not that good of an actress- which is why she faded after the 1970s, in her first post-Last Tango In Paris role, and she's not even particularly physically attractive, even in a European sense. No, her sorry and dull performance is not enough to torpedo the film like the weak last half of L'Avventura does that film, but it is enough to keep the film from the pantheon. The Passenger was also Antonioni's third English language film, after Blowup and Zabriskie Point. Music is almost wholly absent in this film. Seeing is all important in Antonioni films, and the effect of such silences is jarring. Antonioni's use of silences and spaces in the film frame reminds of the visuals of Vermeer's paintings, usually set in rooms that exude silences.
The tale, what little there is of it, is very similar, from a macro perspective, to that in Blowup, in that much of what seems to be is not. The central character, Dave Locke (Nicholson), leads a shallow, anomic life as a documentary film reporter from England- who speaks with an American accent because he was educated in the States, a silly contrivance, who is trying to make not break news of a supposed war going on in an African country that is home to a pink desert with black mountains- perhaps Chad?, but instead of stumbling on to a mystery, as in Blowup, the lead character is the mystery. He impulsively switches places with a dead man, named Robertson (Charles Mulvehill) in a hotel room adjoining his, who could be a veritable doppelganger- the first of many coincidences in this film, after he has to walk back when his vehicle gets stuck in the desert after he goes to film rebels for a documentary. Such synchronicities are a major theme. The problem for Locke is that the ringer is a gun runner for the rebels in the meager little civil war that the country is enduring. This is the set up. However, this is all done with a bravura touch- as Locke stares deeply into Robertson's unblinking dead eyes, as if absorbing his identity, as a flute plays- the rare intercession of a soundtrack. The black Africans at the hotel never question Locke's claim that he is Robertson, despite not speaking with a British accent, as Antonioni nicely inverts the racist belief that all blacks look and sound alike, as the blacks cannot distinguish between two white men.
The film was beautifully shot by Luciano Tovoli in France, Spain, and North Africa and is shown in a 1.85:1 aspect ratio. The Sony Classics DVD transfer is excellent, although not quite as pristine as the DVD for Blowup, despite being a decade younger. The only extra features are the film's trailer, and the film commentaries by Nicholson, and one with Peploe and journalist Aurora Irvine. Nicholson seems to have recorded his commentary with a sore throat, and goes for long minutes without a word. He does have some insight, but overall the lack of insight into the film or its making makes the track seem superfluous. Nicholson may have done it only because he owns the rights to the film and felt his name on a commentary track could add to the film's DVD sales. Peploe adds some interesting technical comments, as well as letting us know that an interesting scene of ants walking up a wire in the African hotel was scripted.
That many dense American critics and viewers do not respond to Antonioni is sadly predictable, and an illustration of their frenetic MTV-level need to be spoonfed every possible detail and interpretation of a work of art, rather than engage it, imbue it, and find satisfactory answers to such queries on their own. Antonioni subverts such lowest common denominator expectations with ease and glee, and The Passenger is a terrific illustration of that claim, chock with its ellipses in time and narrative, as well as proof that film was the last century's most important and defining art form, well beyond writing or music, whose heydays were in earlier centuries. Its flaws are minors, but the things it offers to those willing to take from it are major. I say, be greedy.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Oblique, frustrating and fascinating
Comment: Spoilers are in this review, so beware. This movie frustrated me at times, but in the end it was worth viewing. It is clear that the director flaunts narrative convention. That will bother many people enough to quit watching. Fair enough. In my case, it lead to wanting to learn more about the various threads in this film. Also, I would like to pose some questions that I feel were left open and to see if others noticed the same.
(spoilers follow) Other reviews suggest that the Girl was actually Robertson's wife (perhaps the Daisy he was meant to meet), due to the fact that she registers a room as Mrs. Robinson in the final act of the movie and in that same act, appears to be in some ways complicit with the assassins. It also explains why in the later appointments, no one else shows (the Barcelona appointment was broken because that meeting was with the African agent who is kidnapped in broad daylight in an earlier scene). "Daisy" was there to meet him, but doesn't reveal herself to him as she is already there as the Girl. She also convinces him to stay to complete his fruitless final appointment instead of escaping, as logically, he should have done in order to survive.
However, some things don't quite jive for me in that very handy explanation. First, as I watched the film, it seemed like the obvious narrative goalpost would be to make the Girl be "Daisy" Robinson or whatever name she may have had. This is the typical thriller plot used in many other films, where convenient coincidence move the stories, however, while the movie does play with those contrivances,in each case it seems to deliberately make sure that the coincidences don't actually pay off like one would expect! Example: it's seemed to me that at least Locke suspected the real Robinson was a homosexual. Note the scene that depicts their conversation at the first hotel: Robinson rests his hand right next to Locke's for a moment, before Locke slightly pulls his hand away. The placement and timing seemed somewhat odd to me. It seemed like too intimate a gesture for two isolated men to be making. Second, Locke's surprise when Daisy is first mentioned to him. The scene is setup to make it seem like Locke is simply caught off guard by the rebel agents, but *why* is he caught off guard? It makes more sense once Locke sarcastically replies to the Girl asking about the Daisy appointment. He wonders aloud that Daisy may turn out to be a man.
If he thought Robinson was gay, he would naturally be startled by any mention of a woman or a wife.
Also, it appears Locke's real wife sets off the real manhunt by the assassins. First, she naively informs the government embassy that Robinson is in Barcelona, then subsequently, two agents are seen trailing her as she goes to the police in Spain. If the Girl is the betrayer, why didn't they know his location earlier?
Then again, the two agents arrive before Locke's wife, so somehow they got a tip, but only enough to be a few minutes ahead of the police (they came too quick to be responding to the murder--they came straight to the hotel and the room). The scene is also setup to make one think that the hotel people were somehow in on it as well, note that the desk manager leans out the window and pulls the blinds down as Locke walks up, almost like some sort of signal. Also, the man leaning up to the door to listen into their conversation. And the assassin slips in with relative ease. Was it the Girl leaving the door unlocked or the staff letting him in? Notice, that there were at least 3 cars in the final scene (assassin car, car with sign on it and the police car). The timing and positions puzzle me and demand a repeat viewing when I get a chance. And although it seems certain Locke is dead since Nicholson appears to have said so in the commentary (I haven't heard that yet), we never see his face, and the ending shot almost seems like it's setup as an escape (though it is most likely a metaphorical one). I'll leave it to some other intrepid viewer to interpret all that is going on in the final minutes...
Customer Rating:
Summary: The danger of starting over
Comment: The structure, so reminiscent of L'Avventura, but with the opposite momentum: in L'Avventura, the lovers are wandering aimlessly from place to place, while in The Passenger Nicholson and Schneider are running away from his wife and the police for the last 50 minutes of the movie, sometimes making narrow escapes.
You can't really understand To Kill A Mockingbird until you can thematize the hingelike relationship between Boo Radley and Tom Robinson. Similarly, in The Passenger, one must understand the relationship between impulsively changing your identity, and the world of politics and revolution. When David Locke impulsively assumes the identity of Robertson, he has become a gunrunner providing guns to revolutionaries in Africa. Locke is forced to confront the political world as an actor rather than as an observer (as a journalist he had interviewed the fascist dictator whose minions are now pursuing him as Robertson).
Perhaps the link between the two concepts is the fact that a revolution is a starting-over, a violent abandoning of an enormous past, a step into an unknown future. The dislocation is profound. And the old guard, the dictatorship, clings to power with all its might, resisting change. Just as a person's identity clings to him or her, not so willing to be thrown away.
The arc of the movie is described by Locke himself near the end, when he tells the story of a blind man who regained his sight. After an initial period of elation, the blind man began to notice the ugliness, the dirtiness of the world. He retreated into his room and eventually killed himself. Similarly, David Locke, initially exhilarated by his new identity (he said to Robertson, "Wouldn't it be wonderful if we could leave each day behind, forget about it and start over?"), becomes depressed by it as the film goes on. He says to Maria Schneider, "Let's go eat. The old me is hungry."
Soon after their meeting, as they are driving in his convertible, Schneider asks Locke, "What are you running away from?" He replies, "Turn your back to the front seat." She turns and sees a tree-lined road receding behind her. At first she smiles, amused by his metaphor. Then her smile fades as she senses the falseness of his position.
At the end Locke is murdered by the dictator's secret police. But do they know his real identity? Do they believe they are murdering Robertson? Or do they realize that Locke is an impostor, and they are eliminating the impostor? In any case, Locke dies as another man. And when the police show his wife his dead body, she says significantly, "I never knew him," which means, "I never knew Robertson" but also "I never knew my husband. I never thought him capable of a stunt like taking on another man's identity."
My favorite sequence is the beginning, where the Africans treat Locke with arrogant indifference, and the empty desert helps conspire to frustrate him in his desire to get a story about the guerrillas who are fighting against the fascist government. There is an impressive aridity about this sequence, which is followed by the hotel's airy interior, where Locke converses with Robertson. The ceiling fan is used ingeniously by Antonioni as a time lapse device. We see Locke sitting at the table in his checked shirt, the camera looks up at the fan, and when it returns to Locke he is wearing Robertson's blue shirt.
When Locke finds Robertson's body and decides to take on his identity, he correctly assumes that the Africans who run the hotel won't know the difference between one white man and another. He tells them Locke is dead, and they immediately inform the authorities.
The film ends with the famous shot of the camera in Locke's room moving slowly toward the window, then through the bars of the window, as Locke is murdered off screen. Once outside the hotel, the camera watches the police arrive and take Locke's wife to the room where he is lying dead.
The color lime green plays an important visual role in the movie. It is seen in the African hotel, it is on a wall in the German sequence, it it bathes the entire large restaurant where Locke and the girl are found by the police, who tell Schneider that Locke's wife thinks he is in danger.
The Sony transfer is magnificent. The movie looks better on my plasma TV than it looked in the theater. There are commentaries by Jack Nicholson, interesting, and screenwriter Mark Peploe, less interesting.
A complex, thought-provoking thriller which re-established Antonioni as a great filmmaker after the critical disaster of Zabriskie Point.
Customer Rating:
Summary: THE PASSENGER
Comment: IT'S OKAY TO WATCH I LIKE OLE JACK NICHOLSON IN JUST ABOUT ANY OF HIS MOVIES.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Clumsy plot, beautiful images
Comment: Other reviewers here have pointed out the essential ups and downs of this film. Like "Blow Up," this is another metaphysical thriller that uses the skeleton expectations of the action/adventure genre but slows down the tempo to focus on identity and alienation. The plot is improbable. How could the gunrunners not recognize that Jack Nicholson is not the gentleman they were expecting?
But the storyline is not the reason to watch this film. The way Antonioni films the world is a feast for the eyes. The North African landscape is especially stunning -- the desert, villages, and people. The film begins there and ends in a similarly dry and striking landscape, this time in southern Spain. At this final resting point Jack Nicholson delivers a monologue about how hopeless and dusty the world is. But it seems ineffective and slightly ridiculous after so many beautiful images.
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