Little-seen in the past two decades, Michelangelo Antonioni's still-dazzling movie returns to cinemas in restored director's cut form. Made in the mid-'70s, it stars an impressively understated Jack Nicholson as a burnt-out TV journalist assigned to cover a guerrilla war in the Chad desert.
The Passenger may draw on certain thriller conventions - car chases, assassinations, female romantic interest (a highly resourceful Maria Schneider) - yet Antonioni is more concerned with languidly conveying his protagonist's internal emptiness, through focusing on imposing natural landscapes. Suggesting the impossibility of evading our own personal histories, the film climaxes with a stunning seven-minute single take, which unites the story's multiple strands while preserving the lead players' mystique.
