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Even the most devoted fans of Jack Nicholson may not have heard of one his most moody and mysterious works — Michelangelo Antonioni’s 1975 film The Passenger. Antonioni was one of the most visually inspired Italian filmmakers of the 1960s who frequently focused on disillusioned individuals lost in the modern world. Nicholson’s character, David Locke, is a television journalist doing research for a documentary in the Sahara Desert. When a middle-aged gun dealer dies suddenly in a lonely hotel, Locke assumes his identity.
With a deliberately slow pace, Nicholson’s atypically sedate and introspective performance exemplifies a character struggling with identity and fed up with life. The Last Tango in Paris’s sexy Maria Schneider is his only recognizable co-star. Cinema fans need to take note of the incredible long take at the film’s end that further perplexes the viewer about the film’s ultimate mystery.
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