The Eclectic Cinema Presents:

The Passenger (15)

Italy | 1975

Directed by: Michelangelo Antonioni

Starring: Jack Nicholson | Maria Schneider

We screened an earlier Antonioni film last year as the first instalment of The ABC of Cinema. That was Red Desert (1964), starring Monica Vitti and Richard Harris. The theme of alienation pervades Antonioni’s films. In the earlier film it was Monica Vitti alienated from modern life; in The Passenger it is Jack Nicholson.

Nicholson plays a washed-up war correspondent who takes the unusual step of adopting the identity of a dead man. Complete with the passport and appointments schedule of the deceased, the life of a correspondent becomes more purposeful, exciting … and dangerous. Along the new road taken, Nicholson is joined by Maria Schneider, and together they take a trip into the unknown through (red) desert country – a road-trip to disaster.