After Blow Up (1966) and Zabriskie Point (1970), the indisputable master of philosophical long takes, Michelangelo Antonioni, continued his stylistic evolution in his road movie classic The Passenger (1975), his third film in English. English TV reporter David Locke (Jack Nicholson) drifts ever deeper into the vast Sahara Desert. When arms dealer Robertson (Charles Mulvehill), with whom Locke shares an uncanny resemblance, dies of a heart attack, Locke decides to exchange identities with the dead man. He plans to flee his old life, the frustrating work, the wife… but it is not as easy as he thinks.
London, Munich, Barcelona, Almería… to Antonioni, the landscape is a mirror to the soul. Through his camera lens, he examines the milieu just as much as the person moving within it. The desert has been interpreted to depict Locke’s barren spirit, while Gaudí’s bizarre house, which blends the modern and the baroque, has been thought to depict his confused mind. Faced with the peculiar wonders of modern architecture, man seeks his place, and significance. While the on-screen encounter between Maria Schneider and Jack Nicholson radiates something truly special, the film is a must watch for its legendary tracking shots alone. Antonioni’s visually stunning meditation on humanity is also Nicholson’s favorite among his own filmography.
Joonas Nykänen