THE PASSENGER Milestones

Michelangelo Antonioni’s last great movie appeared in 1975 when he was in his early 60s. It’s officially a French-Spanish- Italian co-production, with an American star, Jack Nicholson.

The film immediately escapes categories, beginning in stark desert terrain and following a man called Locke who assumes the identity of another man called Robertson. The director works from a fine spare screenplay by Mark Peploe and Peter Wollen With its dangling flashbacks, long takes, deep spaces, and hovering sense of violence, THE PASSENGER is one of the strongest films in Antonioni’s enduring study of identity and apartness.

“People disappear every day,” says the woman (Maria Schneider). “Every time they leave the room,” says the man (Nicholson). In Spain, he finally reenters the room. The famous final seven-minute take of human isolation is unforgettable.