DVD Review - The Passenger (1975)

The Passenger
(1975 - Dir. Michelangelo Antonioni)

To call the 1975 masterpiece, The Passenger, an existential thriller is mostly correct. Is it existential? Oh sweet Christmas yes! This is Michelangelo Antonioni after all, the man who made Blow Up, La Notte and L'Aventura. A man whose career-long obsession with identity and alienation produced some of the most enigmatic and discussed films ever made. Then there is the "thriller" part of the moniker.
What elements of a thriller do we have? Do we have a hot young star on the rise? Yes, we have Jack Nicholson at his absolute peak, smack dab between Chinatown and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. We've also got; international intrigue, potentially fatal mistaken identity and an alluring young woman who may provide some steamy answers. However, this is an Antonioni film, the man never had much interest in telling a conventional story. The Passenger, like most of the director's other films isn't about the plot, it's about something much bigger.
Jack Nicholson plays David Locke, a London-based journalist working North Africa. When a fellow traveller named Robinson dies in the next hotel room over, Locke impulsively switches information with the man he barely knows and assumes his identity. Keeping the appointments in Robinson's notebook, Locke revels in what he thinks is a newfound freedom from the stuffy confines of his old life. What he doesn't know is that Robinson was an arms dealer and there are some mighty dangerous folks looking for him. Soon he meets a beautiful young girl, identified in the credits only as "The Girl", and the two trot the globe attempting to escape themselves and the people chasing them.
For an Antonioni film that's a hell of alot of story, but don't worry it unfolds at a snail's pace. Even the chase scene seems poderous and slow. Then again we don't watch Antonioni for mind blowing action. His films are for the most patient of viewers. The story and the people and the dialogue are merely set-pieces, they are only important in their relationship to the world around them. The Passenger's central theme is the desire to be free of the life you have made. While driving down the road in one scene the girl asks Locke, "What are you running from?" Locke tells her to put her back to the dashboard. She does so and watches the road behind them stretch into the distance.
As in other Antonioni films there are no easy answers. The body of the film is constructed and layered in such a way that the central theme is explored in great depth but the resolution is ultimately up to the viewer to put together. In The Passenger's legendary 7 minute, one shot final scene, everything unfolds silently, beautifully and with the kind of tension and release that only a master like Antonioni could build and control.
This is the very first time The Passenger has been available on DVD or available at all in its original restored length. I really wish Criterion had picked this one up and given it the full treatment. The transer is good but nowhere near the level that a film of such scope and beauty demands. There are some nice extras including a rare commentary by Jack Nicholson himself who, although not what you would call "chatty", is clearly in awe of Antonioni and regards his own appearance in one of the director's masterpieces with much pride.