If you're lost in your own life, you probably couldn't make your way through someone else's. So know thyself, enjoy what you've got, be careful what you pretend to be, and remember: wherever you go, there you are. But this movie manages to be more than a collection of truisms. Or does it? Maybe that's enough. Very little was always enough for Antonioni.
It's a pretty trip, without a lot of talking to spoil the scenery. And for all its seeming lack of pace, it fairly breezes by. It's all those landscapes changing every few minutes, I guess, plus I'm a sucker for a footloose American vagabond with mysterious cash and a big convertible and a little automatic. And Maria Schneider.
At the center of the vehicle is Nicholson, who plays confused and headstrong better than anybody since Belmondo. His edge-of-violence persona is on its permanent 70s high simmer throughout this story. He enjoys himself as much as a man can who knows he's on the down side of freedom, but there's a hopelessness to his existential quest: after awhile he doesn't even keep his appointments anymore. He keeps me engaged, even when the story doesn't, by getting progressively more resigned to another man's fate. It's hard to look away from a man about to walk in front of a truck he can see coming.
It's a pretty trip, without a lot of talking to spoil the scenery. And for all its seeming lack of pace, it fairly breezes by. It's all those landscapes changing every few minutes, I guess, plus I'm a sucker for a footloose American vagabond with mysterious cash and a big convertible and a little automatic. And Maria Schneider.
At the center of the vehicle is Nicholson, who plays confused and headstrong better than anybody since Belmondo. His edge-of-violence persona is on its permanent 70s high simmer throughout this story. He enjoys himself as much as a man can who knows he's on the down side of freedom, but there's a hopelessness to his existential quest: after awhile he doesn't even keep his appointments anymore. He keeps me engaged, even when the story doesn't, by getting progressively more resigned to another man's fate. It's hard to look away from a man about to walk in front of a truck he can see coming.