Professione: reporter

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.

"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.

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.

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!

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."