The Passing

The Passing is a film without a plot, an experience with seemingly no end. The viewer is just as likely to be bombarded by documentary-style footage of two old men hanging around as he is to watch the grim torture of a rapist, or the psycho-tronic sounds and weird visions of medical instruments. To be honest, I really liked this movie, but I also found it pretty boring, so I would have to watch 15 minutes a day for about a week, watching it in small doses, like reading a chapter a day of a book. But I can't say I didn't find the whole experience mesmerizing. Not having any idea what this movie was about, I first thought it was going to be about demonology, or murder. The film takes its sweet time coming to any semblance of a plot, but even this aspect of the movie isn't handled in any obvious ways, but is rather interpreted by the viewer via sounds and feelings. Never is the plot really intelligible, but never is it really uninteresting either. I don't know what else to say about this movie but that the editing was excellent, the music excellent (both the contrasting 20's and 80's music samples and the scary-as-f88ck syntheziser song that drones through the whole thing) and the two old men were great actors. I really believed for the most part that they were just two old friends hanging out, and there was some documentary team following them around (and this movie was made far before the docudrama fad became cheesy). In fact, the only thing I didn't find so interesting about this movie was the plot, which seemed a little tagged on- but oh well. It's a shame that someone associated with this movie, the editor at least, didn't go on to greater recognition.

*****************SPOILERS******************* Weird movie about two elderly army buddies who, after living together and looking after each other for years, come to the realization that the end is near and how their getting too old and sick to look after and help each other as the thought of death or suicide starts enter their minds.

The movie then cuts to an unnamed big city where we see a brutal murder and the man who committed the murder is later brought to justice. It then strikes me that the movie plot takes place in the future when it turns that one of the men in the beginning of the movie, Ernie, James Plaster, has submitted his name to a state program that takes the soul of a terminally ill or dying person and somehow puts it into the body of a healthy executed convict.

Ernie is worried about his friend Leviticus, Walton Benjamin, who's already tried to commit suicide and because of Ernie's failing health he feels that if he's not around to take care of Leviticus the worst would happen to him. It seems that during WWII Leviticus saved Ernie's life in Europe an Ernie feels that he owes Leviticus at least that much.

Ernie gets his "Body change" but when he returns back home to Leviticus as a different and much younger person he finds that what Ernie thought it, the body change, would do wasn't exactly what he expected or hoped for.

Very good story about a subject that's been done before with bigger budgets and top actors about dying and coming back as someone else, but not under the same conditions as the movie "The Passing" has with a more realistic outcome. Too bad this movie is almost impossible to find in the video stores and I doubt we'll ever see it on TV because it's a lot better then most movies about the same subject are.

I came upon this movie by luck at a Fry's and it was re-released in a 4 movie horror collection entitled "Blood Thirst". The release date is 2003, around the time I discovered it. I had not watched this movie since I bought it, although I viewed two of the other films, both okay. So my sister and I popped it in the other night and we were pleasantly surprised at how good it was. She complained a little of the pacing, which was not up to the standards of the modern small attention-spanned viewers. I loved the conversations of the two older men because they sounded natural, yet offbeat at the same time. The war reenactment scene was well done for any movie before CGI took over, in my opinion. There were some truly spooky scenes in the film that owe the emotion to the camera angles. I was also disconcerted with one powerful and graphic scene in particular that I didn't expect. There were other shocking bits as well near the ending as plot falls into place. Lastly I want to mention my love of the soundtrack. All oldies. One in particular, "Pussy cat Rag", is now a part of my internal soundtrack. Overall an excellent movie. I would recommend it to most anyone mature enough to handle some disturbing images. Science fiction fans might want to check this out too.

Astonishing, Spiritual, Compelling and full of humor and heart. Great performances by Welton Benjamin Johnson and James Plaster. Special thanks to Gladys Vivian Johnson beloved mother and wife. The great Matriarch, mother to all children and excellent homemaker.

It took me a while to realize that this was more than just an awful home movie about a widower and his never-married roomie getting old (maybe dying). We gradually learn a few things about them - like how they now happen to share the same house. Then there is that other part of the film, featuring clips of a young man committing a capital crime and preparing for execution - what's up with that??? Finally, it all comes together: one of the elderly gentlemen participates in a program to exchange his AGING body for the soon-to-be-deceased one. After the procedure, his friends don't recognize him and have difficulty believing his story. Most - if not all - of these people have probably never acted before, so we get the appearance of extremely poor, first-time-scripted behavior, along with all of the other elements of second-rate filmmaking. At the halfway point of this flick, my grade for it was a very low number. But that increased as the picture continued. The more that I think - or write - about it, the better I rate it. So, before I judge it improperly high, I'll stop.