THE PASSENGER | 1975 | Michelangelo Antonioni's MGM film, here in uncut 30th-anniversary re-release, asks what's on the other side of life as British investigative reporter David Locke (Jack Nicholson) exchanges identities with a dead acquaintance and discovers he's now a gun runner for rebels in a small African nation. He winds up on the run from his wife (Jenny Runacre) and his old life, joined by a Girl (Maria Schneider) who encourages him to play out his new hand. On to Barcelona, where he fails to reconnect with the rebels but does hook up with a Girl (Maria Schneider) who encourages him to carry on with his journey. Locke is, like all of us, the passenger of the title; what he doesn't know is his destination or the identity of his driver/pilot, assuming there is one. Meanwhile, Antonioni's camera keeps wandering away from him, trying to show him where and how to look, how to be the protagonist of the film. It all ends in southern Spain, in the Hotel de la Gloria, where that camera seems to squeeze through the barred window of Locke's room like a human soul.

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