I was asked by my friend, Paul, to list several movies I would consider giving to my favorite film-loving friend for Christmas this year. Paul and I used to get together once a week to watch films. Since he was asking the question, I decided to make him my subject. This past year, I’ve watched several films I thought, "Man, I wish I had been able to see this with Paul." The Passenger was one of these. I would like to say upfront that beyond the bullshit that I have written below, I just plain loved the movie so much I wanted to share it with my friend.
David Locke (Jack Nicholson) steps out of a stranded Land Rover in the desert, sand in every direction. He's just come back from a fruitless search for a militia. He is a reporter with a stranded vehicle and a stranded life. He comes across a fellow English traveler who has died in his sleep in the room next to his. Remarkably this man looks a
lot like him. David makes an impulsive decision and changes identities with the dead man. Thus begins The Passenger, a film by Michelangelo Antonioni director of Blow Up.
In the 126 minutes making up the story, there is perhaps five pages of dialogue. The Passenger belongs to that rare breed of film that actually tells its story using the power of a visual medium over dialogue. It requires the viewer to engage carefully. Antonioni uses the camera to languidly guide us through the space, walking our eyes past the clues that start to set up the thriller. The movie feels very Hitchcockian, not only in it's subject matter, which touches on such movies as North by Northwest, but in the concept of the ordinary guy getting caught up in events beyond his control. David Locke has stolen the identity of this dead English man and is a passenger on this man’s mysterious life.
David Locke begins to realize that even though he has escaped from his troubled life, he may be out of the frying pan and into the fire. The life he has "stolen" has its own tangles and dangers. Eventually his previous life comes looking for him while his new identity is endangering his very existence. The idea of stealing away into another life is a potent drug that fascinates me. To be able to slip into another existence, to be free of the past, to be alive instead of stuck in the drudgery. We often think the grass is greener anywhere else except where we are. David Locke gives into his temptation and finds himself wrapped up in circumstances beyond his control.
The only bright spot in this journey is a young girl he runs into played by Maria Schneider. With innocent looks and worldly understated knowledge, she embraces the chance encounter with David. He is man swimming upstream against what’s typical in this world and she is a seeker feeding on his lack of the mundane. Together, they travel through Spain, till the events placed in motion by David's identity theft play out in a masterful sequence that, like much of this movie, is firmly imbedded in the tension between the languid storytelling and the thriller plot. Antonioni uses his vision and pacing to contrast against the expectations of the viewer. It is this exploration creating the vibrancy of the movie. The camera guides us playfully at times through this physical landscape while Antonioni slips us in and out of David's mind. Because of this interplay with the viewer, the movie comes off fresh and timeless.
I also love the way flashbacks are handled in live sound. For instance, at one point we hear a voice on a tape recorder talking, but we’re not told at first it’s coming from the tape player. Then we see the player and think "ah, clever." But, as David listens, there’s a subtle transition and the camera pans out from him to a window and we see we have moved out of this tape recording of the past and into a flashback.
For me the true test of a beloved film is one that I have to get a "fix" of at least once a year. Kind of like when some of us were kids and the "Wizard of Oz" would play on CBS at Holiday time... (was it Thanksgiving?). The Passenger is now on that list. The DVD is a bit sparse but it does include a commentary track with Jack Nicholson and with Journalist Aurora Irvine and the Screenwriter Mark Peploe. Thanks Paul and Spout for giving me the opportunity to talk about this great film.
-R. Brad Yarhouse