The Passenger (1975) User Reviews

A haunting and unique film from Antonioni

[David-117 · 8/10 · 10 May 1999]

One of Jack Nicholson's best but also least known films, `The Passenger' or `Professione: Reporter' is a haunting examination of the desire to escape and start afresh and is without doubt Antonioni's best English language film, eclipsing both `Blowup' and `Zabriskie Point'. Nicholson's role as a world-weary television journalist (David Locke) isn't a particularly demanding one but it is fascinating to see him give a performance so different from anything else we have seen from him and one which is much better than the horny little devil efforts he has sadly specialised in since `One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest'.

Some may find the opening twenty minutes of the film, where there is virtually no dialogue, hard-going but this perfectly illustrates the sparse and confusing environment of the North African desert where the film begins. We are also treated to a marvellous scene between Locke and the man whose identity he later assumes where a tape recording and flashback are ingeniously merged into one and then separated again. Antonioni creates a mood that is almost indefinable throughout, a kind of hollow detachment which is exactly the perspective that Locke has on the world which has gradually worn him down yet the director still manages to conjure up power and simple romance between Locke and the girl he meets who is played by Maria Schneider. The film was not a hit at the box-office which is not surprising considering it's uncommercial style but artistically and cinematically it is a triumph of innovation.

One Hell of a Ride

[reelreviewsandrecommendations · 8/10 · 17 April 2023]

David Locke is a dispirited journalist struggling to complete a documentary about post-colonial Africa. Deep in the Sahara Desert, he can find no-one to interview, and his Land Rover is rendered useless by innumerable sand dunes. Back at the isolated village where his hotel is situated, he discovers an Englishman named Robertson with whom he had struck up an acquaintance has suddenly died. Sensing a means of escape from his frustrating existence, Locke swaps identities with the man. The plan works, though Locke soon realizes that the dead man's life was a lot more complicated than his own- and far more dangerous.

Directed by Michelangelo Antonioni and written alongside Mark Peploe and Peter Wollen, 'The Passenger' is an intriguing, atmospheric drama exploring the complexities of truth, identity and isolation. It is a subtle, low-key film that doesn't rely on garrulous dialogue to forward the narrative, and is open to interpretation in many ways. Antonioni strikes a perfect balance between visual and oral storytelling, using Locke's journey to contemplate the impermanence of identity, the mysteries of truth and the devastation of alienation. Though Locke escapes from his unfulfilling life, he cannot run from his past. Nor can he escape the past associated with his new identity, or the fate attached to it.

Here, one could say that Antonioni is suggesting that identity is not something one can easily define or control, but rather something that one has to constantly negotiate and question. He uses Locke's story to posit that identity is not necessarily a source of meaning or fulfilment, but rather one of confusion and alienation. Furthermore, the alienation Locke feels is not just with his environment and with those around him, but with himself. He struggles throughout the film with his sense of purpose, and only by embracing his alienation does he find a potential source of new perspectives and experiences. In this way, Antonioni shows how alienation can positively affect one's life.

Additionally, the notions of truth and reality being stable and fixed concepts are put to question, as every character in the film is involved in a lie, in one way or another. The world of 'The Passenger' is one riddled with contradictions and uncertainties, in terms of perception and beliefs. The film shows us that truth is elusive, and not necessarily a source of clarity or certainty, but rather one of befuddlement and melancholy. As is the case with the themes of identity and alienation, Antonioni's exploration of truth and reality is one that feels consistently fresh and intriguing throughout 'The Passenger'; making its narrative one that you'd be hard pressed to forget.

Despite this depth and complexity of narrative, it is the cinematography that is the real draw here, which is epic and atmospheric. Luciano Tovoli's utilisation of long takes and natural lighting creates a realistic and immersive style contrasted with the alienating world Locke finds himself in. His artful framing and composition carries symbolic, expressive meanings- such as the use of windows and mirrors to create frames within frames, suggesting Locke's entrapment and isolation.

Tovoli also makes excellent use of zooms, pans, tilts and tracking shots to create dynamic and fluid transitions between spaces and perspectives, mirroring Locke's search for truth and identity. His handling of a seven-minute tracking shot at the end of the movie is particularly breath-taking; perhaps one of the finest such sequences ever put to film. This intense scene acts as a metaphor for Locke's journey, as well as creating a contrast between the realistic and symbolic, challenging our perception and understanding of reality, as it shows us things that are not possible or logical.

Through its use of long takes, deep focus and natural lighting- creating a modernist, minimalist aesthetic that reflects the characters' alienation- the film is reminiscent of Antonioni's previous 'L'Avventura' trilogy; though in colour and on location. Conversely, some may compare the visual aesthetics to those of Yasujiro Ozu or Robert Bresson, who used natural lighting to generate a realistic and contemplative style that explored the human condition in a profound, assured way. Whatever the case, the cinematography of 'The Passenger' is arguably its greatest strength, enhancing the film's themes and narrative by creating a contrast between the realistic and the symbolic; while always remaining visually stunning.

'The Passenger' stars Jack Nicholson as Locke, delivering a measured performance that rivals his similarly understated efforts in 'The King of Marvin Gardens' and 'Five Easy Pieces.' From his opening moments- trapped in the desert unable to communicate with anyone- to his last, Nicholson mesmerizes. Consistently underplaying it, he never sets a foot wrong performance-wise, sharing an easy chemistry with co-star Maria Schneider that makes watching them together a real treat. For her part, Schneider brings a light touch to proceedings and- though her role is a little underwritten- shines throughout; leaving an indelible impression on the viewer.

Having said all that, if you don't appreciate abstract, existentialist films, or narratives that are open to interpretation and draped in mystery and intrigue; 'The Passenger' may not be for you. It is a complex film that doesn't clearly or definitely state its intentions or explain its meanings. Beautifully shot and strongly acted, 'The Passenger' examines some profound themes in a mature, understated way, and is a highlight of Antonioni's oeuvre. If you do appreciate the abstract, the mysterious and the profound, then hop on board 'The Passenger': it's one hell of a ride.

Trading oneself in

[Asa_Nisi_Masa2 · 8/10 · 3 May 2007]

For such an enigmatic movie, Professione: Reporter features a thematically well-treaded path. A young, slim Jack Nicholson in an understated performance, sans the familiar shark's grin, plays David Locke, a celebrated, respected, British-born, American-educated international reporter whose life has lost all sense of purpose (this is Antonioni after all!). On finding a British arms dealer he knew now freshly dead in his hotel room in an unnamed, remote African location, Locke decides to take on the other man's identity, and make the world believe that David Locke, the journalist, is dead. Why he does this is never explained, though one can easily intuit it. Ultimately, it doesn't really matter, though one can guess it may have something to do with self-loathing (the bitter irony is that taking on an arms dealer's identity is hardly more honourable!). In one memorable sequence, Locke's wife Rachel (who now believes herself to be a widow) is watching a piece of footage featuring Locke interviewing an unnamed African leader. It stands out as one of the most acerbic polemics on journalism ever filmed. In it, the camera is turned back onto Locke by his African interviewee after the latter loses his patience with the reporter's narrow-minded, Eurocentric vision, betrayed by his lazy, formulaic questions. The artifice of Locke's profession (which on the contrary ought to be a search for truth) is fully exposed in this scene, as well as Locke's increasing disillusionment with his purpose in life.

Despite its power and polemic against journalism, Professione: Reporter is also an understated movie from start to finish, made for a grown-up audience. Nothing is spelt out for you. However, the movie is strewn throughout with powerful and evocative visual clues, so it's nonetheless up to you as an attentive viewer to pick up (the early scene of Locke's Jeep getting stuck in the African desert sand, anyone?), or even soak them up unconsciously. As with all Antonioni, every shot in this movie is worthy of analysis and admiration. Bergman once said about the Italian that he could create some arresting individual images, but was incapable of stringing them all together in the sequence of a palatable movie: sorry Ingmar, old man - as much as I feel in awe of your craft, you're talking nonsense, here. However, I can't believe Antonioni once had the cheek to say he improvises each scene as he goes along (see his IMDb quotes page). There isn't a chance in hell these meticulously crafted, immaculately framed and composed movies are not also carefully premeditated. Clearly, Antonioni was trying to start a myth about himself along the lines of the one about Mozart composing his music straight onto the page, as dictated by God. In Professione: Reporter, I was especially in awe of the sequence involving the single long take from the window of Locke's last hotel room in an unnamed, dusty Spanish village. Regarding Maria Schneider, it truly is a shame she wasn't the star in a greater number of successful movies. Her ambiguity makes it very difficult to keep one's eyes off her when she's on screen. She looks like a cross between a boy, a girl and something cutely ape-like (I mean it in a good way!).

I would like to warn viewers of the inclusion of footage of a real execution - again, this was a film within the film. Personally, I found it very disturbing, which is why I'm mentioning it here.

haunting, understated, and extraordinary

[whitecargo · 10 November 2003]

(I)

From the very first sequence, this is a starkly shot film with a very unique visual signature to everything you see. A desolate, exotic locale for a movie: the North African desert. But this desert setting is perfectly in accord with the refreshing cinematic technique of Michelangelo Antonioni, who always stressed economy. Just as in his other works, there are no unnecessary ornaments or frills here. He introduces us to the strange, existential story in this film, and its odd, solitary, lead character-- in as clean, pure, and undiluted terms as possible. The principle here is that 'less is more'.

Some people really dislike this about Antonioni. He uses his camera in such a quiet way; and there is just this single, very terse figure/ground relationship which is the focus of his attention. But I think he knows that character stands out with more relief when its set against a minimalist background. Here, because characterization is channeled through Jack Nicholson, (far better even than in 'Blow-up' with David Hemmings) its more than enough. The brevity and scarcity in the film funnels you straight into Nicholson's awesome talent. We are along with him for the ride.

The plot starts out cryptically and simply, with very little explained about the man the camera spends so much time on. Jack Nicholson is a reporter named David Locke, and he is covering an African civil war. But beyond this, you must infer most everything else about him from just what you see-just by observing his behavior, and nothing else. There is scant dialogue of any kind. The depth of Nicholson's character is conveyed in miniscule components, parsed out after long intervals. His overall demeanor is weary, frustrated, sullen; the typical traveler who cant get good service. But he is also dispirited with his mission and in a way, despondent about his whole future and way of life.

Then suddenly, he sheds his persona and takes on someone elses'. He is staying in an isolated hotel and a man in the next room dies accidentally-and Nicholson decides to trade identities with the corpse; leaving the hotel with this new identity and letting everyone think it is he who has died. It's the personal reasons for this act, which Antonioni explores throughout the rest of the movie: the consequences and responsibilities incurred when you gamble upon coincidence and invest in random chance.

(II)

'Passenger' follows the progress of a man through a personal crisis; an identity transformation. The film is split with a Doppler-shift down the meridian of the identity theft Nicholson commits. His problems after this act consist of trying to make sure his ex-wife and employers continue to assume he is dead; and deciding how much of the false man's life and business to play at.

With the plot as its laid out this way, we might not ever really ever know the full reasons why Locke exchanged personality for that of another. But Antonioni adds some really clever flourishes: since Locke was a news journalist, the video interviews he conducted up to the point of his 'death' are available both to the people who begin to hunt him, and to us. We actually see more of Locke revealed in these flashbacks than we do in real-time. It adds just the right note. We get a better idea of the reasoning behind this bold act, why he casually gave up his whole history on a whim.

In his assignments up to this side trip to North Africa, we discern that Locke is dissatisfied with 'the rules' governing his profession. He is a talented observer, and wants to be a good reporter. But he finds all the news he gathers is in a way, pre-constrained by cultural filters. Its not raw enough, instead, its already been processed for him. In other words, he is never getting the real story; as long as he is a reporter, people frame their information for him as a reporter. As long as he is an Anglo, people treat him as an Anglo.

But after the identity-shedding transformation, he is free; and he has the time of his life. Returning to London, Locke amusedly begins playing the role of the dead man: keeping his engagements, carrying out business deals. Theres no accountability; he is pretending to be someone else. Only one thing: the dead man was an arms dealer and Nicholson is getting into deep trouble by masquerading this way. His philosophical pleasure may be cut short sooner than he expects. He doesnt see the trouble coming his way, but we do. Its a sort of combination of film noir and road-trip movie here; and it works.

(III)

Things begin to unravel. Shady customers start to dog his footsteps. Growing increasingly edgy, as he continues to follow the strange itinerary, Nicholson hooks up by coincidence with a young architecture student backpacking through Spain (well-played by petite, dusky, sensual Maria Schneider). They're an odd pair; but their joining forces makes one of a most intriguing screen romances of the period. She isn't given much to do in the screenplay, but makes a wonderful calming presence to the brittle Nicholson. Her character insists that Locke should, in all rationality, continue his journey--she is rigorous about principles. Locke acquiesces and he continues on, down along the coast of Spain towards Africa again, on his fool's errands, to meet his fate.

I wont expose any more of the plot. But I will say the final sequence of this movie is extremely startling and powerful. I had never even heard about it; in my opinion it should be talked about much, much more. Totally daring and innovative. Antonioni really shows what he can do here-you simply have to see it.

There are some flaws, yes: a few of Antonioni's flashbacks come off lame and awkward- too abrupt. They're really irksome. And there is a sloppy element in the final denoument, which I still cant understand: the drivers school vehicle. I yearn for the movie to be re-cut to remove these failings. But its still very satisfying as is.

(IV)

The bottom line here is that Nicholson has, in this film, a showcase for his talents like few other projects I have seen him in. This film was made in 1975, just a year after 'Chinatown' and the same year as his cameo in The Who's `Tommy' and his lead role in Milos Foreman's `One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest'. Jack is quite young, fit, and good-looking when he made this film. Its rewarding to remember him as he was then, before he both let himself go somewhat physically, and also began playing so many 'sick, horny focker' roles. This is one of the highlights of his entire life's work, imho. Easily as memorable as Jake Gittes or MacMurphy.

Jack is careful to do a good job in this movie--perhaps at this point in his career, he was still worried about major goof-ups. Its definitely prior to the point where he began to 'coast'. It looks like he took this film seriously--and probably enjoyed it immensely. Anyway, what other actor do you know today that could walk away with a difficult role like this one; an actor who would be as supremely interesting to us (as Nicholson is, in many scenes in this film) doing not much of anything for long moments at a time?

I doubt even DeNiro could have succeeded--he would have played it too 'tough-guy' and added too much gesture. Its Nicholson's laconic, dry twang, his sardonic gestures and those bored, squinty, seen-it-all eyes, that makes it work. There is a world-weariness about him in this performance that is quite special. The weight of past experiences exudes strongly from him; and its just what Antonioni needed. This quality defined him for this role like no other contemporary actor of his time.

Anyway, in this flick, you know he is doomed but you aren't really sure how Antonioni is going to do it. Antonioni creates massive tension with that very economical, severe camera style and almost no music. There are many scenes where the only sounds are the background noises from the environment itself; you can practically see Nicholson's sweat, hear his breath, and feel his pulse. Nicholson, surely very aware of this tight focus on him, maintains a rigid grip on his character throughout the film.

He isn't at all cocky--his special trait is his vulnerability. Nicholson always seems tough on the outside, but also as if he can still be hurt (as we see here, and in Chinatown as well). Its a vulnerability very like Bogart's in 'Casablanca'. In fact, if this film had been made in a previous generation, (as Gene Siskel once claimed) there would have been no there actor besides Bogart who could have even pulled it off. But no matter what: its great to see Nicholson on his own, competing with no other strong castmembers, just cruising along as a lone, insecure American among hostile and unfriendly foreigners.

His characterization is superbly restrained and un-showy; his gestures and expressions are as bland as possible; and there are no wildly quotable lines or speeches (any Nicholson fan should view this film for this reason alone). Anyway, by the end of the flick, you are positioned so closely alongside Nicholson--so wrapped up in his fate--that the brilliant, low-key finale can take you by surprise and it leaves a terrific poignancy.

In short, there are many reasons to like this film. I heartily recommend it. Its easily the best movie I have seen in some time. Its essential for appreciating both Nicholson and Antonioni. I encourage you to rent this movie on VHS as I am sure you will relish it as well.

One of the best Antonioni films

[michelerealini · 10/10 · 27 September 2005]

Michelangelo Antonioni's films are very static, with a few dialogues. They describe boredom of bourgeois class, they're cold. Sometimes they're unbearable: either you like them or you don't.

"Professione: reporter", to me, belongs to the most interesting period of Antonioni's career (between the second half of the Sixties and the first of the Seventies). Because in these years the Italian director made his most accessible works: "Blow Up" (1966), "Zabryskie point" (1969) and "Professione: reporter" ("The Passenger", 1974). These films contain more action and more situations. They are neither more commercial nor more mainstream, but they talk about an adventure or a dream.

A journalist in North Africa switches the identity with a dead man who looks like him. He does this to escape from his life and for living a more interesting one. But he'll pay for his choice...

It's difficult to say, but this Antonioni movie (with his recurrent themes and -in a smaller way- times) has a lot of suspense, if I can say so. Once you begin to watch it, you can't give up. The funny thing is that nothing really big or special happens: sometimes it seems a road movie, sometimes it is a typical Antonioni analysis of the society. Jack Nicholson -how young he was at that time!- fills the film, his performance and his expressions are brilliant. It's also interesting the chemistry with Maria Schneider, the lady of "The last tango in Paris" -an actress who never got the fame and the recognition she deserved.

Cinematography is fantastic. But, above all, the big surprise of the film is the final shot: a 7-8 minutes take without cuts, absolute amazing. It's not describable, it's a must!

Famous concluding shot worth the wait.

[mercuryadonis · 9/10 · 7 August 2003]

Slow but well worth the time it takes to arrive at the shattering conclusion. Watch it more than once as there are many small visual cues and tips that add both to the plot and theme. Jack Nicholson is superb - and surprisingly low-key - as the jaded and detached reporter who switches identity with a dead man out of boredom more than anything else. Maria Schneider is fine in a somewhat underwritten role. The real stars however are Antonioni's restlessly roving camera and the sublime locations which include the Sahara desert, a cable-car, and that bewitching Gaudi rooftop in Barcelona.

Impatient viewers beware - others are in for a fascinating Camus-like existential drama!

[ozjeppe · 6/10 · 11 November 2007]

Life-weary film documentary maker/reporter Nicholson on a mission in Africa, trades identities with Englishman who dies just as they cross paths... and whose far from uncomplicated life slowly unfolds - in Nicholson's shape...

In this much-discussed '70s piece, director Antonioni upholds a tradition of contemplative film-making that thankfully doesn't just spell things out. So therefore: long takes, restrained music score and time-jumping storytelling. Impatient viewers beware; others glide along and pay attention in an intelligently written, gorgeously filmed (on equally gorgeous global locations) drama (with thriller elements) about Camus-like existential issues, and politics. Only quibble is theatrical delivery of some dialog and lack of overall emotional punch. If you're up to that, there is quite a fascinating ride ahead!

6 out of 10 from Ozjeppe.

The Passenger is back and as mysterious as ever

[osullivan60 · 10/10 · 27 June 2006]

This is from a feature I wrote 30 years ago, when 30 myself, on The Passenger for a now defunct London film magazine (Films Illustrated) where readers could discuss/analyse/deconstruct favourite movies (before the age of video and DVD!). I am revisiting it now that The Passenger is available again after a 20 year disappearance. However as I am limited to 1,000 words I have had to edit…

"The Passenger will remain a film of the mid '70s, as one of Antonioni's previous films, Blow-Up, remains a film for and symbolises the '60s. It also contains one of Jack Nicholson's definitive performances (along with Chinatown, The Last Detail and One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest) and has, perhaps, been a trifle overshadowed by these films all emerging within a short period of time of each other and the enormous publicity and word-of-mouth they have generated. But The Passenger has proved itself a strangely durable film and, like Chinatown, one that will remain around for a long time, both in the consciousness of its admirers and, one hopes, constant revivals.

Antonioni's third English-speaking film, The Passenger, like Blow-Up and Zabriskie Point, centres around the oblique, unresolved aspects of life. In Antonioni's films - as in life - there are no easy answers, things are not tidied up, explained, sorted out.

So it is with The Passenger. Jack Nicholson is Locke, an outwardly successful television journalist, but he also is being eaten away by his own disillusionment with the job and the value of his interviews, and that general malaise that affects Antonioni's people. When the film begins, we find him on location in Chad where his jeep breaks down and gets bogged in the sand. Locke breaks down and collapses on the sand as the camera pans away over the strange but beautiful desert panorama.

We next see Locke, in an advanced state of exhaustion, struggling back to his hotel and a cool shower, and discovering that the man in the next room, who looks rather like him, has died. We are very conscious of the stillness in the hotel - the blue walls, a fly buzzing, the noise of the fan, Locke staring intently at the dead man on the bed. We hear their dialogue of the previous evening and the aural flashback changes to a visual one by some very neat editing. Locke changes rooms, passport photos and luggage, and finds it quite easy to take on a new identity. How desperate his need is can be judged by his conversations back in Europe with the free, liberated girl (Maria Schneider) he meets up with. ("I used to be somebody else, but I traded him in"). She, incidentally, is freer than Locke could ever be.

It transpires Locke has taken over the identity of a gun-runner, Robertson. Perhaps it is best not to go into the plot in too much detail. Best all round just to pick out some of the marvellous moments along the way to the final breathtaking conceit. There's Locke, back in London, daringly visiting his old haunts - delighting in being someone else, but of course he isn't. Later on he is suspended in a cable car high about the ocean his arms outstretched like a bird in flight. Later still, the girl asks him what he is running from, and he tells her to turn around and we see what she sees - the road behind them.

By now, we the audience are caught up in this mesmerising film and its deliberations of he mysteries of identity. We are now totally involved in Locke's plight. He has given up one identity for another and becomes more and more helpless as the situation gets out of his control. Finally, in a remote Spanish hotel he can go no further, either as himself or as his new identity, as his wife and the gun-runners close in on him. One shouldn't spoil the last sequence for those still to see it, but it shows the only real freedom from identity and self is in death. The final scene shows us the aftermath: as the sun goes down, the hotel-keeper comes out for a walk, a woman sits in the doorway resting. For some people, who do not question their existence, the continuity of life goes on.

Antonioni, now in his sixties, is one of the great Italian directors who, like Fellini and Visconti, burst upon the international film scene in the late '50s. His trilogy of Italian films, L'Avventura, La Notte and L'Eclisse, and his first colour film The Red Desert (all with Monica Vitti) contributed to the renaissance of the European cinema. Then he switched to his English-speaking films, of which Blow-Up was the first. He is as much a master of landscape as John Ford was in his genre. He thinks nothing of painting whole streets or trees to get the effect he wants. Blow-Up is the only film from the whole, crazy period of Swinging London films that has not dated and which encapsulates what it was really all about. It remains one of the great films. Like Bergman, Bunuel or Fellini you either respond to his vision or reject it totally. His images linger on in the mind, his work never dates."

That is what part of what I wrote in 1976 and The Passenger indeed remains endlessly fascinating and particularly so now that it is available again. Even at the Antonioni retrospective in 2005 it was not available to include in the season, but we did have cast members Jenny Runacre and Steve Berkoff there to speak warmly of it's making and importance.

Let's hope a new generation will discover its timeless appeal, and amazingly Antonioni now in his 90s is still with us, if rather frail. A 2005 short of his was shown last year on the great statue of Moses in Rome and was also in its own way fascinatingly mysterious.

One great film and one terrible film

[ferdinand1932 · 6/10 · 17 October 2009]

This has the attributes of a great and terrible film in one: The great film has the camera tracking work, the almost reposed editing, the sense of movement without a direction and wonderful photographic composition.

The terrible film has inept story structure and bad plotting; pretentious (in the sense that it aims for something it fails to execute properly) allusions to ideas; a very bad secondary story and acting which seems worse because the English actors are not guided by their Italian director.

It could have been written by Camus and if so, it would have needed a narrator to get inside the head of the Nicholson character - as it is, it tends to be a travelogue of a man who is uncertainly written by second rate writers. If a novelist had done this job, an editor would have rejected it immediately for its gaping holes e.g. how the Schneider character is involved which just poor plotting.

Re-release of a classic

[Chris Knipp · 9/10 · 3 October 2005]

Michelangelo Antonioni: The Passenger (Italy/France 1975). 128 minutes. Release by Sony Classics Pictures release. Release date: October 28, 2005. Shown at the New York Film Festival: October 8, 2005.

Thirty years later, Michelangelo Antonioni's re-released "The Passenger" is looking very good, and so are Jack Nicholson and Maria Schneider, as the journalist who takes a dead man's identity in the Sahara and the girl he meets in Barcelona who decides to tag along. David Locke (Nicholson) takes the passport of a man named Robertson who he's had a few drinks with in a hotel. Before that we see Locke experience frustration, giving away cigarettes to men in turbans who say nothing, abandoned by a boy guide, dumping a Land Rover stuck in the sand. Later we see films that show as a journalist he was subservient to bad men. Locke has Robertson's appointment book which leads him to Munich, then various points in Spain. He learns Robertson was a committed man taking risks: he sold arms to revolutionaries whose causes he thought were just. He gets a huge down-payment.

Then Locke's wife gets a tape of him talking to Robertson and his passport with Robertson's photo pasted into it -- and she gets the picture.

Changing your identity and using someone else's isn't just an existential act, it's also a criminal one. Locke's gambit is hopeless: he winds up fleeing from himself. The film skillfully gives its action story an existential underpinning. The chase keeps up a rapid pace, like the Bourne franchise, but it has time to contemplate Locke's old and new lives in a metaphorical story he tells Schneider about a blind man that explains how he ends up.

Antonioni is great at little incidentals -- a girl chewing bubblegum, a man reciting in a Gaudi building. And at the end, people coming and going in a desolate plaza outside a bullfighting amphitheater. The locations provide exotic glamor. The camera-work of course is wonderful. In retrospect now one can see this was definitely a culmination for Antonioni. He thought it technically his best film. This is the director's preferred European version, originally released as "Professione: Reporter."

Jack Nicholson wanders around Antonioni's postmodern world

[roland-104 · 6/10 · 14 December 2005]

The accepted explanation for the long suppression of this film from domestic distribution runs as follows: Jack Nicholson, who stars as the film's protagonist, international political journalist David Locke, bought the distribution rights long ago and chose not to authorize screenings until recently. I think I can see why. It's not a very good film.

Near the beginning, Nicholson's character decides, for reasons that are never clearly articulated, that he wants to drop out of his present life: ditch his job, which takes him on the road much of the time to obscure places like the African desert where we first encounter him; ditch his attractive wife Rachel (Jenny Runacre), back home in London; terminate his very identity.

The opportunity to do this arises fortuitously, when Locke discovers the body of a fellow Brit named Robertson who was checked into the same humble hotel in a small settlement on the unnamed African desert. (Actually Locke is an American who immigrated to Britain.) They had chatted a little over drinks but were not friends. Locke eyes his dead compatriot's passport, notes the vague similarities in facial features and body size, and decides on the spot to switch Robertson's photo with his own passport headshot, expropriate Robertson's gear in place of his own, then move on as the other guy, leaving the world to think Locke himself was the dead man.

For the rest of the movie Locke wanders around somewhat aimlessly, in the way that characters are wont to do in Antonioni's films. Along the way he picks up a comely young woman who is never named (she's called "the girl" in the movie's credits). "The girl" is played by Maria Schneider, who just three years earlier had become widely noticed as Marlon Brando's object of carnal desire in "Last Tango in Paris."

Locke's attraction to The girl is understandable enough. What seems odd is that , having discovered that the decedent man's business was international arms smuggling, Locke decides to live out this role, buying and selling weaponry. Even more odd is that, when Locke decides he'd better drop this risky business and really drop out, it is The girl who urges him to continue, to follow through with his rendezvous to make a final big sale, to finish something he starts for once. Since The girl is herself an aimless, vaguely defined vagabond, why should she care?

Well, it is more than a little plausible that The girl could be a plant, an operative working for one or another of the people who are after Robertson. That would explain her urging Locke to complete his rendezvous, thus steering him to his doom. It would also explain Locke's having glimpsed The girl earlier in London. Perhaps the contact was arranged so she would recognize the right man to stalk later, back on the Continent. In this sense the English title for the film, placing an emphasis on The Girl's role as pivotal, is more apt than the original Italian title, one that placed the emphasis on Locke himself.

It's a dangerous business. As the film shuffles along, more and more people develop a keen interest in Locke ne Robertson, several of whom would like to see him dead. Rachel wants a better accounting for what became of her husband and comes over to do some fact finding. The most pesky follower is Martin Knight (Ian Hendry). Eventually everybody converges in another bleak settlement, this time in Spain. The outcome satisfies some of Locke's pursuers more than others.

What's gone missing in this narrative is Locke's interior: his motives for changing his identity and fulfillment of the dead man's nefarious business. What we need here is a novel about Locke by Graham Greene, upon which to base a better screenplay, for Greene was so brilliant in fleshing out the character of jaded men gone to seed in remote parts of the world. It is more than a little compensation, however, that the film is shot beautifully, capturing rich details of the desert and the tiny outposts of civilization there and in rural Spain.

At the time this film was ready for screening, Nicholson's career had skyrocketed into full bloom. Among other films in the few preceding years, he had made "Easy Rider" (1969), "Five Easy Pieces" (1970), "Carnal Knowledge" (1971), "The King of Marvin Gardens" (1972), "Chinatown" (1974) and "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" (1975, the same year that "The Passenger" was released). He may well have felt that the desultory role of David Locke was a poor showcase for his talents and might hurt his star appeal. If so, I would agree with him. My rating: 6/10 (B-). (Seen on 12/11/05). To read more of my film reviews, e-mail me for directions to my websites.

Noir of Contrasting Cultures Told Brilliantly Visually in Blinding Light

[noralee · 9/10 · 12 November 2005]

"The Passenger (Professione: reporter)" is a tour de force of visual story telling. While there is more dialog and the plot makes more sense than many other Michelangelo Antonioni films, it first and foremost uses film-making as a medium to tell its story.

The camera is always our eye, taking in sweeping panoramas of the North African desert to an architectural tour of European churches and an appreciation of the variegated urban and rural landscapes of Moorish Spain, still showing relics of older invasions, where it all comes together as we literally go from dust to dust. We are the passengers on this existential trip to try and change identities through someone else's travels logging almost as many locations as an outlandish Bond film .

Because so much of the film is dispassionately observational about natural landscape and cityscape, and windswept plazas that provide imitations of nature within a city, it stands up through time, even as the 1975 clothes, hair, TV journalist technology, and, somewhat, male/female relationships, look a bit dated and we can no longer assume that African guerrilla fighters and gun dealers helping them are more noble than the corrupt inheritors of colonialism.

The camera is constantly picking out culture contrasts - camels vs. jeeps, horse-drawn carriages blocking Munich traffic, Gaudi's serpentine architecture vs. Barcelona's modern skyline, a cable car gliding over a shimmering body of water.

And, of course, the very American Jack Nicholson in a very European film, with the many layers of meaning as he plays an adventurous broadcast reporter who ironically tries to escape the truth about himself. His young, sexy, challenging self is surprisingly effective here as we believe both his ethical lapses and his obsession.

Avoiding the narration that a film today would utilize, Antonioni well takes advantage of what now looks fairly primitive tapings of the reporter's past and current interviews to convey background and flashbacks on characters through minimal explication with overlapping sound and gliding visuals. The intertwined story lines constantly re-emphasize the point of not really knowing a person or a culture from the outside, with a repeated refrain of "What do you see?".

Maria Schneider's character skirts just this side of a male fantasy cliché, though Antonioni helped to create the type, and a few subtle plot points save her from total disingenuous sex kitten femme fatale (even as her character shrugs that one plot point is "unlikely"). Nicholson's repeated refrain to her of "What the f* are you doing with me?" takes on different meanings as we know more.

I'm not sure if this 2005 re-release of the director's cut, with supposedly nine minutes that were not in the original U.S. release, is notably pristine, as it wasn't particularly sharp, but the director's trademark crystalline blue sky is still breathtaking and is a must-see in a full screen rather than on DVD. The views practically feel like the old Cinemascope.

A climactic landscape shot brings all the violent, sensual, philosophical and narrative plot and thematic points together in a marvelous way that has been much imitated but is still powerful, as the camera looks out a window at a cool distance in the heat, key events culminate back and forth frantically in front of the camera, in and out of frame, and the camera moves through the bars and is free to roam in ever more close-ups.

Too slow and boring

[aleXandrugota · 6/10 · 18 March 2023]

A film without tension that always seems to be improvising something. Jack Nicholson's performance is not at all exciting and Maria Schneider seems to be learning her role. Very fake, drained of any acting energy very likely after the trauma of "Last Tango in Paris". With the exception of "Blow-up", Antonioni's English-language films are semi-failures (as in this case) or downright weak, such as Zabriskie Point. At least the main roles in Zabriskie Point are played by two amateur actors. I made a serious effort to watch it to the end, there are some pluses worth noting but not enough. I didn't understand why Antonioni ventured into this attempted thriller (especially since it came after an extraordinary Blow-up). Jack Nicholoson doesn't seem at all at ease either in this stuffy film that doesn't offer much satisfaction to the viewer. Especially to an Antonioni fan.

it must be me

[blanche-2 · 5/10 · 25 November 2014]

Lately I just haven't been able to hit it right with my film rentals. This is yet another example.

Lest all of you find me an idiot, I'll say up front that I really love Blow-Up, also from this team, along with dozens of other films. This just wasn't one of them.

The story is that David Locke (Jack Nicholson), a reporter, is sent to Africa to write about activities there. While in a cheap hotel, he finds the dead body of someone he knows slightly, a man named Robertson. Locke is obviously miserable with his life because he takes this man's identity, puts the dead body in his room, and everyone thinks he's the one who died.

This man, Robertson, had an airport locker number written down -- obviously this is before 9/11, when they got rid of the lockers. Inside Robertson finds a bunch of papers with gun drawings, and later he is approached by two men who ask them for the papers. Turns out Robertson was running guns and being paid a large amount of money.

Robertson/Locke picks up with a young woman (Maria Schneider) who tags along with him. When he finds out that a reporter friend of Locke's is looking for him, Robertson, he gets the girl to help him escape. They take off together.

However, Locke's wife has discovered the switch and everyone is after him -- the terrorists want Robertson, Locke's wife wants to know what's going on, and she has the police with her.

This had the makings of an exciting story but instead it was long, boring, without much dialogue, but with beautifully framed shots and interesting locations, plus a good performance by Nicholson.

I freely admit I don't understand the appeal of a film like this. It had no energy, no pulse, and I didn't feel anything for the characters. It's always films like this that get huge scores on IMDb and are hailed as masterpieces. To me, No Country for Old Men was a masterpiece, A Man Escaped is a masterpiece, Autumn Sonata, Ace in the Hole, The Dead, Fargo, so many others, but alas, not this one. I guess I'm not deep enough.

The Two Locke's

[tieman64 · 1 May 2008]

We join David Locke (Jack Nicholson) at a particularly low point in his life. He is alone in the wilderness, lost and frustrated. Unhappy with his life, he discovers the corpse of a fellow hotel guest and promptly decides to take on the guy's identity.

"I'd like to enquire about flights," Locke asks a hotel clerk. He seeks to escape his past. Later in the film, as he rides a cable cart, Locke spreads his arms and soars like a bird. He's flying, finally enjoying a brief moment of freedom.

The theme of identity, and Locke's name itself, immediately recalls the writings of English philosopher John Locke. Locke believed in the concept of the "tabula rasa" or blank slate. He believed that it was our experiences that defined us as people and that the only way to escape who we are is to effectively erase our history and cut ourselves off from experiences.

Throughout his writings, Locke emphasised the individual's freedom to author his or her own soul. Each individual was free to define his character, but his basic identity as a member of the human species could not be altered. So Locke had two ideas at war. Firstly the belief that the individual was free to author his own life, and secondly the belief that human nature is rigid and unchangeable. It is from this presumption of a free, self authored mind, combined with a sense of rigid human nature, that the Lockean doctrine of "natural" rights is derived.

In Antonioni's film, Nicholson articulates these ideas himself. He is trapped between wanting to be free and having to fulfil duties/roles/tasks embedded in the new persona he has acquired. While responding to a comment that all PLACES are the same, he even argues that it's actually the PEOPLE that are the same. That everyone conforms to specific cultural archetypes. The film's original title, "Profession: Reporter", highlights this point best.

Nicholson's character is desperate to escape this. Like his character in "Five Easy Pieces", he wants some unmappable freedom. He wants to be an individual. Beyond this, though, he wants to stay blank. In what is perhaps the film's most joyous moment, a female character asks Locke what he's running from. He tells her to turn her back to the front of the car. What occurs next is an instant of spontaneous elation and giddy happiness, as she watches the road rush away behind them.

But what people fail to notice during this scene, is that she is in fact watching the past. By facing her previous experiences (which Locke refuses to do) she is happy. Happiness comes from her memories and past encounters, while Locke is miserable simply because he refuses to acknowledge his past experiences.

Throughout the film Locke is asked whether he thinks "the landscape" is beautiful. Once he answers "no", another time he absent mindedly answers "yes", but Antonioni stresses that Locke is really not paying attention. Locke intentionally avoids absorbing beauty or new experiences in an effort to remain in a constant state of rebirth.

These themes are culminated in a brilliant "blind man" story towards the end of the film. Locke, a journalist who specialises in seeing and recording the truth, is painfully attuned to what he calls the "dirt" of the world. As such, he chooses to remain blind. A blank slate.

Antonioni is particularly good at endings and the final shot of "The Passenger" really elevates the whole film. Like the dead man, whose identity he took on, Locke dies alone and face down in a bed. His ex wife pops up and states that she never knew him, but nobody seems to care.

9/10- A great film, worth two viewings. It captures a profound sense of isolation and sadness. Antonioni's camera seems to capture the immense tiredness of the body. Rather than portray experiences, he shows what remains of past experiences. He shows what comes afterwards, when everything has been said. The middle portion of the film is slow and seems to be lacking some sort of superficial drama, but things build nicely and the final payoff well is worth the wait.

who was the girl

[isabellaO · 10/10 · 14 January 2006]

If you had to see this movie three times to figure it out then you weren't paying attention! I'm astonished at the number of reviewers/posters who did not know who the girl was. Where were you when Locke was checking into the hotel towards the end of the movie, when he is told by the hotel clerk that Mrs Robertson had arrived earlier, and that he (the clerk) doesn't need to see Locke/Robertson's passport because "one is enough"? So "the girl" has shown a passport that identifies her as Mrs. Robertson, thus explaining why she was in London, then Barcelona, and why she behaved so strangely and evasively around Locke, a stranger wearing her husband's clothes (she does not know initially that her husband is dead.) She obviously was trying to figure out what was going on, and was not some "free spirit" who took up with Locke by chance. I saw this movie thirty years ago and I'm very happy to see that it has resurfaced, it is excellent.

Early Nicholson unheralded classic

[barryrd · 9/10 · 10 April 2012]

An excellent movie, with a young Jack Nicholson in the leading role, this is a story about a reporter who switches identities with a gun runner. It is a fascinating plot with many twists and turns but most of all, the cinematography is unsurpassed. It is shot in London, Germany and Northern Africa and is a joy to watch, evoking images from Lawrence of Arabia. I knew the director, Michelangel Antonioni, from film classics such as Blow -Up and Zabriskie Point, which attracted attention from 1960's cinema critics for interpreting the social scene of that period. The movie has minimal dialogue but is crafted scene by scene with great artistry. It is a movie that I can enjoy again quite easily.

Oddly indifferent, beautiful, and perhaps a bit loaded with suggestive metaphor...unique

[secondtake · 7/10 · 2 October 2012]

The Passenger (1975)

This will bore the soul out of a lot of people. In a way, it's supposed to. Or rather, it will only appeal to those who are somehow as drifting and disenchanted as the lead character here. (If not literally, then culturally, aesthetically.) For them it will perhaps be transfixing.

Jack Nicholson plays a fabulously indifferent, tired, and increasingly detached and frustrated reporter in the African desert. It's as if, like Paul Bowles and others who leave the comforts of Europe or America, he finds that life is in fact has a different kind of meaning. Nicholson in fact then seems to accept that all is meaningless, and he finds a comfort in admitting it, in succumbing, and so he does.

The famous switching of identities is meant to set him free from those things he hates about his job and the world it has created around him. What replaces it is different and at first liberating, but ultimately he finds his roads narrowing and his anxiety, ever bottled, gets to him. There are a number of moral analogies to draw here, but none are satisfying without leaving the others also viable. What I mean is, the open-endedness of so much of the movie, despite the very closed ending, is the essence of its meaning.

My sense of Antonioni begins with his famous trilogy (1960-62), first and most all with "L'Avventura." In a way, the idea there is similar--people are drawn by circumstance into a new existence by lack of better choices, nothing more, and all is well by not caring too much. The past is forgotten. The future doesn't matter. What "The Passenger" lacks for me is the atmosphere, the poetic flow of the earlier movies. Maybe that means this one is more realistic, less about movie versions of listlessness and temporal joys. Maybe this really is the best of the director's varied and often amazing output.

And I loved it on some level. Maybe I'm just a lot older, but when I saw "L'Avventura" (and I similarly "L'Eclisse") I was moved and actually changed. It really affected me. Here I was drawn in and liked it all but without transformation. The celebrated long take at the end required some intricate set design (the motel in the last scene is all artificial, and comes apart and reassembles out of sight for the camera), and it's one of the highlights of the movie if not the astonishment others say it is.

If you like taut, quiet, searching films, especially European style, this deserves a good look. It's tightly calculated even if it seems, on the surface, slow and meandering. A very different thing going on here than the common norm today, even among art films. Worth a deliberate, absorbing viewing.

"I used to be somebody else, but I traded him in"

[keywitness · 10/10 · 27 May 2016]

"The Passenger" is a fascinating movie, a cinematic and philosophical masterpiece. I love Antonioni, and this is one of his best. I have watched it several times through the years, each time opening for myself a new moment or a new meaning. The acting is superb, and so is the camera work. The final scene that lasts for seven minutes without anything really happening is sublime. There is also a deep philosophical theme in the movie, uniquely different from other films of the time that also show dissatisfied, lost, or marginalized characters.

Much has been written about the existential symbolism of the film, and it certainly pervades it on a grand scale. However, there is an interesting aspect of this movie which sets it apart from other existentialist works. In a Sartre-like view, a man is alienated from reality and does not feel welcome in the world nor connected with mankind. But in "The Passenger", it is David Locke's own life that is actually hostile to him. Let me try to explain what I mean. Like many people, he is trying to run away from mundane reality, the job that has been making him jaded, the marriage that's lost its flame. However, instead of making piecemeal changes, he tries to replace his life as a whole – reject it and become someone else. And now it is life itself that's after him, ready to punish him for violating the rules of engagement. It's as if he is just a vessel owned by life, which destroys him as soon as he tries to take matters in his own hands.

At some point in the movie David says that he used to be somebody else, but traded him in (by the way, what a fabulous line). He boasts – he thinks he is in control of his life choices, but will soon find out otherwise. What crushes him in the end is not fate or circumstances or his past that catches up with him – it is life itself, ejecting an unruly passenger. Such juxtaposition of life with a man as a separate, all-powerful entity is unique in the artistic portrayal of existential struggle.

The original title of the movie (in Italian) was "Profession: Reporter". This title would have made perfect sense if the character was an estranged observer of life. However, Jack Nicholson's character is truly a passenger – he is not in the driver's seat, and his privileges are pretty limited. His connection to life is neither cordial nor caring, the same way as there is no human connection between a train passenger and the train operator. David Locke has violated the rules, and his ticket is canceled. The train will continue forward without him.

Captivating and mysterious Maria Schneider plays The Girl. As David jumps from one city to another, he keeps running into her. She is quite an ephemeral character, floating from place to place, seemingly not attached to any mundane or conventional activity like work or family. Having no name in the movie suits her character perfectly – one less connection to real life. Perhaps this is the only kind of people who David can interact with now and who can deal with him. When the police ask David's wife to identify his dead body, she says she doesn't know him. It is true – he has become a complete stranger to her. But when they ask the girl if she knows David, she says yes. Even though they have met only recently, they seem to be people of the same kind. Perhaps like him, the girl is also a passenger? Perhaps we all are.

Slow long ponderous scenes

[SnoopyStyle · 6/10 · 2 August 2014]

Journalist David Locke (Jack Nicholson) travels the Sahara Desert and meets gunrunner David Robertson. He finds the lookalike gunrunner dead and switches identities. He tries to fly away but others believing he's the real Robertson want him to deliver. In Barcelona, he meets a girl (Maria Schneider). Meanwhile his old colleagues are looking for Robertson to do a story on Locke's last days.

It's very naturalistic, slow, long scenes, lots of nothingness and rather ponderous. The first half is a real drag. Maria Schneider comes in after an hour. She's able to inject a little bit of energy, a very little. At least, Jack Nicholson has somebody to truly interact with. That's my main objection to the first half. It's all about trying to figure out what the heck he's doing. There is the fascinating single shot scene near the end. It's interesting to see the only true saving grace. At least, this is director Michelangelo Antonioni's style. It just isn't mine.

Watch it twice

[RolyRoly · 9/10 · 2 August 2009]

Having heard about this film for years, I finally had the opportunity to watch it on DVD last night. I only wish I'd seen it years ago so I could have spent the last 34 years telling everyone I know how brilliant it is. Yes, the concluding scene (shot) is everything that it has been cracked up to be, but what astonished me even more was how Antonioni was able to wrench such a brilliant performance from both Maria Schneider and, even more impressively, Jack Nicholson. Watching this film with our 21 year-old son, whose main Nicholson reference points have been developed only in the last 10 years or so, we had to explain that, yes, in his day, Nicholson could actually act with restraint and subtlety. But never more so than in this film.

We watched it twice in succession and even the second time around it was a remarkable experience. The other reviews on IMDb offer plenty of insightful analysis. But do watch it twice.

Michaelangelo Antoniono's existential journey into the human psych

[george.schmidt · 6/10 · 15 November 2005]

THE PASSENGER (1975) ** Filmmaker Michaelangelo Antoniono's existential journey into the human psyche explores the great What If with a fascinating yet ultimately dull excursion with What If You Had The Chance To Change Your Life With Someone Else's? An American journalist (played with low-key cool by Jack Nicholson, in an intriguing turn) abroad in Africa covering a documentary for the Brits about a guerilla force winds up instead exchanging his identity with a fellow traveler whose death proves to be the ultimate irony: life can change just like that. Taking the dead man's persona Nicholson discovers he may have bargained for something he unwittingly decides to follow thru involving political imbroglio in the form of an amoral gunrunner and a sense of escape in the female form of Maria Schneider. What has the beginnings of a bare bones plot and a fine idea is ultimately eschewed for visual overbearing and metaphor to spare in man's navel gazing and worth of identity in a desperate attempt to escape who we are. I get it! But Nicholson barely registering an ounce of frustration proves a true enigma (a compliment by the way) and just the right amount of mercurial precision not unlike his turn in the similar Who Am I fundamentals of "Five Easy Pieces".

Blue and orange

[petra_ste · 9/10 · 21 September 2008]

David Locke (an unusually understated Jack Nicholson), a journalist making a reportage in Africa, is tired of his life and perhaps of himself; when a person he had just met dies, David pretends to be him and goes on with the dead man's mysterious life.

This could have been the plot of an airport novel, but, like in l'Avventura, in Antonioni the "giallo" side of the story is merely the premise.

Locke is frustrated by being unable to see beyond the surface of people and situations, and decides to start over again as Robertson; however, much like the blind man of the final anecdote, he ultimately finds no relief. His perspective is limited, his experience haunted by problems of both his old life (his wife pursuing him) and his new one (people hunting for him).

The moment in which he is finally able to transcend his narrow point of view is death. In an astounding piece of film-making, a long, elegant single take, the camera leaves an exhausted David lying in the bed of a sordid hotel in a town in the middle of nowhere, follows the key events taking place outside and symbolically slides through the window grates in the moment of the murder, finally freeing David from his own existence.

Also fascinating is the use Antonioni makes of colors. A sequence at the beginning shows a bright blue car stalling in the midst of the stark orange of the desert. For the rest of the movie blue/white on one hand and orange/red on the other are symbolically linked, respectively, to David's new life/desire to escape and to his past (and Robertson's) catching up with him.

-Blue/white: the rooms of the hotel in which the identities are switched, the dead man's shirt which David wears, the sea of Barcelona over which David appears to loom over in a memorable shot, the Girl's dresses and luggage, the car on which they travel.

-Orange/red: These tones are dominant at the beginning (the desert), almost disappear during the middle act of the picture, then reappear in the last part as David's fate comes in full circle, re-emerging in the landscape in which the car breaks down. When the murder takes place, a young kid wearing a bright red shirt enters the screen running, symbolically sealing David's fate.

9/10

Not for everyone

[stevelivesey67 · 6/10 · 26 February 2021]

We are in the world of arthouse here. The pace is slow, the dialogue sparing and the plot is minimal. It's metaphor is about self, identity, loneliness and belonging which are all interesting points which make it a film to admire but not one to love. Nicholson is wasted, Schneider is wooden, the sets/locations keep up the interest and the 'oner' ending is a triumph.

Intense, Intriguing Concept is Lost Amidst an Agonizingly Slow Pace

[drqshadow-reviews · 5/10 · 29 February 2012]

Jack Nicholson plays a television reporter so exhausted and overwhelmed by life that he fakes his own death and assumes another man's identity. Unfortunately, that new role is tangled in more political tripwires than a moth in a spiderweb and he's almost immediately navigating some very tricky waters. Extremely vacant storytelling is the rule of the day here, with a Camus-like degree of passivity. In retrospect, or particularly during the great climax that closes the film, it becomes clear that there are a surprising number of independently moving pieces key to the plot. The problem is in how casually they sneak up on the viewer. For all its cinematic beauty, deep existential ruminations and whirling asides, this is a very dull, slow-moving picture that's painfully deliberate at times. That ultimately makes it inaccessible to most and largely unrewarding to those who stick with it to the end. Of course, the famed single-cut panorama at the very end is a true revelation - it elegantly snips away every remaining plot thread in a delicate, mesmerizing display of technique - but seven minutes of perfection isn't enough to overcome the preceding two hours of bland dawdling.