If you're familiar with Antonioni's particular style of film-making, then The Passenger (1975) shouldn't be too difficult to appreciate. The film is beautifully shot, deliberately paced and centred on an existentialist conundrum that looks at the ideas of identity and displacement. It isn't quite as enigmatic or as evasive as some of his more celebrated films; with the story here managing to present us with enough information so as to satisfy the basic need for closure, while the central character portrayed by Jack Nicholson is likable enough, and indeed, interesting enough, to make investing some time with the film a worthwhile experience. Admittedly, it does take a little work to truly settle into, with Antonioni's often hypnotic use of rhythm and movement - as the idea of time and time passing becomes a central theme of the film - takes precedence over the plot and leads the story away from that central idea of identity confusion, while never once losing sight of our central character and his peculiar situation.
As with the director's most celebrated film, Blowup (1966), The Passenger also deals with the ideas of sight and perception, and with a character - in this case a writer/television reporter - who literally creates his own story as the film progresses. With these factors in places we have an absolutely fascinating piece of work; one filled with endless ideas of interpretation and reinterpretation as we look at the accumulation of character information and the vague scenes that seem to suggest the background of this character in relation to his decisions that come to inform the direction of the plot. With this, we again come back to that central notion of identity and how it governs our journey through life, with the earliest scenes showing Nicholson's character to be lost (both literally and figuratively) in a pensive, limbo-like existence and finding his way out of this torturous situation by attempting to step into the shoes of a completely different character (again, an idea expressed in both the literal and metaphorical sense of the term). These ideas are depicted through Antonioni's fantastic use of time and space, as he places Nicholson, first as an insignificant speck in the midst of the African desert, and then eventually against an ever changing backdrop of exciting and exotic European locales, to literally convey his lack of significance within the world that he inhabits.
Nevertheless, the real enjoyment of the film comes from the eventual realisation that this character makes on the nature of existence and his place within it, and how Antonioni suggests this through his typically rigid and starkly beautiful direction and the actual mechanisms of the plot. As ever with Antonioni's work, the narrative here is structured in a subjective and episodic manner, moving from one scene to the next while offering us snatches of information that we can collect and consider within the perspective of that penultimate scene that seems to put the rest of the film into a kind of context. The director also uses flashbacks and cutaways to scenes that we assume have some precedence over the journey that the character is taking, though again, it could just as easily be connected to the political climate that the film suggests through the documentary footage shot by Nicholson's character before his eventual self-imposed exile from himself. Here, the implication of the film's English title becomes clear, with the character of David Locke becoming a literal passenger in his own life; an empty vessel just drifting through existence with no real interaction, boxed in by the confines of a disintegrating marriage and tied to a job that is slowly sucking the very essence from his being.
Though the film is as minimal and subtle as many of Antonioni's earlier films, such as his grand cinematic gesture, the so-called "alienation trilogy", comprising of the films L'avventura (1960), La Notte (1961) and L'Eclisse (1962), the ultimate themes are incredibly affecting and heartbreaking in their finality; with Locke becoming the representation of the literal lost soul, a ghost in his own life who finds escape through imitation, only to end up reliving the same nightmare as if trapped within some endless loop. For me, it is easy to identify with the ideas here; with the central concept of remaking your own life as someone else entirely - or to live our lives from another perspective - coming back to the often mistaken belief that the grass is always greener on the other side. This notion is suggested throughout the film, from the first very meeting between Locke and the enigmatic Robertson, to that final scene between David and the mysterious girl, in which Locke relates the somewhat heartbreaking parable of the blind man who, after finally regaining his sight on the eve of his 40th birthday, is literally overwhelmed by what a terrible state the world is in.
Metaphors run rife through the film, from Antonioni's visual abstractions within the frame, to the subtle use of wordplay within the script. The ending then ties the whole thing together with a masterful display of technical virtuosity and one of the great, enigmatic questions of Antonioni's career. It is sad, mostly in the same way that the endings of La Notte and L'Eclisse were sad, suggesting a thread of resigned disappointment and the rejection of escape in favour of the easiest option. Ultimately though, the film is deeper, more affecting and more fascinating than any of this particular review might suggest; with Antonioni producing one of his very greatest films, aided by the excellent performances from Nicholson and Maria Schneider, and that continually evasive and hypnotic tone of wandering melancholy, as we move slowly towards that inevitable final, and one of Antonioni's boldest and most purely defined artistic statements.
