The Passenger

I watched it many years ago on the telly, I think as I wait for my drink at bar of the BFI. I can’t say I loved it, which makes me even more eager to experience it on a screen of its size. Less than a minute in I wonder, where the hell was I looking the first time. Simply put, The passenger is a wonder. My friend, the wise architect of this night out on the South Bank compares it to Camus’s L’Ètranger. Maybe he’s right. Maybe that’s way it immediately resonated with me.
Antonioni’s favourite work—as he said once in an interview—is an enigmatic cinematic piece which tension is slowly cooked under a torrid sun. All is dusty and sticky and sweaty. So is the human threat as it ominously closes in.

‘I've seen so many of them grow up. Other people look at the children and they all imagine a new world. But me, when I watch them, I just see the same old tragedy begin all over again. They can't get away from us. Is boring.’