Michelangelo Antonioni's "The Passenger"

I watched Michelangelo Antonioni’s The Passenger recently. The movie features Jack Nicholson who is by any account a living legend of cinema. Both Hollywood and Bollywood are full of stars but deplorably lacking in actors. Even in that league of extraordinary gentlemen, Nicholson is a force to be reckoned with. Neither Michelangelo Antnioni’s genius nor his fame need an introduction. So far so good.

With this movie came the crushing realization that I don’t have the ability to critically watch cinema (the critics’ choice works, so to say). I have watched a lot of movies (like A LOT of movies – thank you Aditya Mangla, thank you TPB) and fancied myself knowledgeable in such matters, but now the bubble has been burst.

While watching the movie, I was too involved with what was happening to understand what the producer meant by all that. Kind of goes back to when I was a rookie developer at Shaw and some soft-skills training tried to teach the difference between listening and active listening (listening between the lines).My impressions was the cinematography was AWESOME and the way the environment dominated an actor as dominating as Jack Nicholson was impressive (SRK would no doubt have a sad song with lots of close-up shots in the damn desert). Apart from that, I saw only the slow-ass chase, the strange female character, and the predictable ending.

True, I sort of realized what the essence was, sort of got the feeling about the movie was all about, but I had no words to put to it then. I realized I liked the movie (in a way), but I wasn’t sure why. Not until I read this excellent review that I realized what I was missing. The words ennui, escapism, identity, destiny, coincidence, existential malaise, did not occur to me as I saw the movie. All I had was the feeling that there was something behind the curtain of a rather tame mystery. I guess that is what critics are paid for – articulating concisely what others feel vaguely. I just expected better of myself.

I guess I’ll get better with practice, so am planning to watch a lot more non-mainstream movies now.

I strongly recommend The Passenger movie to everyone, but if you are a normal mortal like me, just read the review I linked above before you watch it. There can’t be spoilers for this movie; the things that get spoilt already suck here. It is the other bit which is superb.