Michelangelo Antonioni
Professione: Reporter

To name one's favorite movie means to cite a title so beloved that it implies identifying with the characters and the situation described in the film. In my case, the film I've watched the most times (I own a copy on DVD) is definitely "The Passenger" by Michelangelo Antonioni, dating back to 1975. Of course, I haven't found myself exactly in the same situation as the protagonist, but who hasn't honestly thought, at least once in their life, about changing identity to experience living under a new persona? A theme already effectively tackled by Luigi Pirandello in the great novel "Il fu Mattia Pascal" and which Antonioni handles admirably with a modern approach.

Briefly, the story centers around an English reporter named David Locke (played by a truly measured and effective Jack Nicholson, free of over-the-top antics) who is in a sub-Saharan African region to conduct a report on the guerrilla movements operating there. One day, returning to the hotel from an unsuccessful excursion, he accidentally finds the hotel neighbor, named David Robertson, dead from a heart attack. Overcoming his initial surprise, Locke has a sudden intuition (it's a forced narrative but necessary for the unfolding of the plot): given the incredible physical resemblance between the two, the reporter decides to forge the identity documents and swap identities with the deceased. It would be the perfect solution for someone dissatisfied with their existence, but there's a small detail: the deceased was an adventurer who earned a living smuggling weapons for revolutionary guerrilla groups in the Third World. From that moment, Locke, now Robertson, certainly experiences a change in life, but not for the better. Moving from Munich to London, then to Barcelona and Andalusia (as scheduled stops in the smuggler's itinerary), the new Robertson experiences firsthand the difficulty of living under new guises until the tragic epilogue. There's not only the inherent risk associated with that type of activity (Robertson is objectively despised by emissaries of dictatorships stationed in Africa against which the insurgent movements are fighting), but it's also crucial to consider that Locke's wife and colleagues he worked with want to find Robertson to get information about the last days of the deceased reporter. The net will inevitably close in around the protagonist, despite the helpful aid of a student of architecture he happens upon in Barcelona.

If that is the gist of the plot, the focus should be on some underlying elements of the film. Director Antonioni has always been an attentive observer of existential discomfort in modern society, which is the foundation of interpersonal incommunicability and everything attributed to the concept of alienation. Here, specifically, one shouldn't necessarily think of the dusty socio-economic critiques penned by Karl Marx in the 19th century, but rather what has been directly felt by those like reporter Locke, who experience it in their work. He himself would have all the credentials for a fulfilling profession, in which to find recognition. But that's not the case. Even he (like the photographer protagonist in another Antonioni film, "Blow-Up," certain of photographing reality, which by nature is not static and hence elusive) realizes that what is reported in the news is only one aspect of reality and doesn’t exhaust it comprehensively. Reality is indecipherable and elusive; justly, one day his wife points out that even though he is a stylistically impeccable reporter, he merely aligns himself with what the interviewee (a typical petty dictator of an imaginary African state) says without attempting to raise any objections aimed at at least slightly challenging the current powerful figure.

But if reality is constantly evolving and one's role is alienated and alienating, the protagonist, besides asking "What am I doing here?" also questions "Who am I?" and finds nothing better than trying to create a different reality under new guises. It might seem like a way out of the above-described existential stalemate, but it's clear that someone groping in the dark, like the protagonist, cannot save themselves. It’s not enough to traverse southern Spain in a convertible with a beautiful student (masterfully portrayed by Maria Schneider) and respond to the question "What are you running away from?" with the statement "Turn around and you'll see," while the camera focuses on a tree-lined avenue in the countryside surrounding Barcelona. Locke, who pretends to be Robertson, is just a hunted man and unable, even in this new life, to decipher reality. Just as before, the necessary contacts to produce a report were lacking, now the emissaries for arms smuggling to the guerrillas are unavailable (eliminated prematurely by the regime's hitmen). There’s much to ponder about the futility of free will when destiny (or karma for Hindus) is already mapped out, and each of us is deluded into thinking we act when instead we are acted upon and are at the mercy of opposing forces. Therefore, in my opinion, it's a film to be retrieved and rewatched absolutely, precisely because of Antonioni's great ability to tackle profound themes in a comprehensive and graceful way without being pedantic and directing actors and actresses masterfully in a work with an on-the-road plot (as it would have been defined at one time).