The Passenger (2005)

It is difficult to explain the magic of Antonioni's films. Like many other films of this fantastic filmmaker, this "passenger" is also a slow film, with long sequences without dialogues but full of meanings, that addresses the same themes of the emptiness of the human condition, of alienation, of the attempt to escape a certain existence, the bankruptcy of relationships, the inability to communicate. The filmmaking of this filmmaker is beautiful and unique, it has a hypnotic effect on us, viewers. Even when he films banal things, we are delighted and dazzled by what we see. In this film, the final 7-minute sequence filmed from the bedroom window where Jack Nicholson stands is anthology.

By 1975, Jack Nicholson was an established actor, having played a man disheartened with his path in life (Five Easy Pieces), a misogynist (Carnal Knowledge), and a detective (Chinatown). While his best known role from 1975 was that of the rebellious McMurphy in "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest", an equally important one was that of a journalist who switches identities with a dead gun-runner in "Professione: reporter" ("The Passenger" in English).Michelangelo Antonioni had previously made a trilogy of movies looking at disillusionment with modernity (L'avventura, La notte, L'eclisse). But this focus on the topic emphasizes the protagonist's individual desire for something new. The first half of the movie has limited dialogue, often featuring a sentence or two before going several minutes without any speech, as if to emphasize the isolation that the protagonist feels in his current career. Things start to pick up once he meets a young woman (Maria Schneider) and soon realizes that by assuming a new identity, he's gotten in over his head. Much like how the protagonist of Antonioni's "Blow Up" faced a moral dilemma about his work, Nicholson's character has to face the issue of whether it was truly in his interest to adopt the gun-runner's identity.While this movie isn't a masterpiece in the vein of Nicholson's more famous movie that year, it still bears watching as a look at the question of one's role in the world, and our connection to events beyond our reach. And the final shot is one of the most impressive in cinema history.

I'd previously watched Antonioni's BLOW-UP, which I really liked, so I thought I'd check out this 1975 film that was shot extensively in Spain, Germany, and the UK, standing in for Africa. I'm a big fan of Jack Nicholson as well, so this film is one that looked promising.Sadly this turned out to be not my cup of tea at all. I'm not knocking it, I'm just saying that it's one of those style-over-substance art-house movies that just doesn't have enough of any kind of substance for my liking. The pacing is super-slow, and the plot - about an assumed identity and the danger it brings - doesn't really go anywhere. I do like certain art-house films, such as the work of Werner Herzog for example, but Antonioni just didn't connect with me here.I appreciate that THE PASSENGER has intriguing themes of identity and isolation, but it's a film that has been packaged as a thriller and in that respect it doesn't work at all. Nicholson gives his typically assured performance but I was left looking at the clock for much of the time here and even the much-vaunted tracking shot was a disappointment.

Carlo Ponti produced this movie, Jack Nicholson starred in this 1975 turkey that presented itself as a mysterious Italian masterpiece when in fact it is a stinking pile of dung that isn't worth ten minutes of anyone's time and the fact that I watched every minute of it shows what a cast iron stomach I have for movies Jack Nicholson has made no matter how idiotic or ridiculous. The 1970s were a time of very strange movies and I guess 1975 being right in the middle of that decade made this movie fit in quite well with the "movie without a real ending" kind of flicks that were being foisted on the public back then. The only mystery in this movie is how grown up movie makers could make such trash. I suspect this movie never made back the money used to make it and pay its actors. I have rarely seen a worse movie that had such a high IMDb overall rating (7.8 I think is the average which is sickening). Please avoid this and if you do watch it wear a good old fashioned gas mask to reduce your exposure to the stench of its pointless meandering through over an hour and twenty minutes of your precious life. Skip It! StocktonRob p.s. the ending is as totally confusing and pointless as the movie. No explanation of how Jack dies or why. Just trash!