Passenger (1963) User Reviews (11)

A Posthumous Masterpiece

[nbott · 8/10 · 26 August 2002]

This is an incomplete deeply moving masterpiece. The scenes of Auschwitz are disturbing, of course, but more so set against a genuine human drama involving two women on opposite sides of this evil situation. We see how the best of human sensibility can be drawn out in the worst evil places. We witness mixed motives on the part of our overseer of prisoners. Why is she protective of this one concentration camp victim? We see her drawn to the beauty and the power of this simple woman victimized by this idiotic Nazi policy of confinement. She is also conflicted regarding this simple woman's love for her fiancee, a fellow prisoner.

This is a situation where you can genuinely regret the cruel fate that would deny us this completed film which is so powerful even in the truncated form completed by his colleagues after Munk's death. See this film if you can get a chance.

Even in its incomplete state, this movie is important in understanding life in Auschwitz

[Erik_Surewaard · 7/10 · 14 August 2023]

The first 8 minutes of this black-and-white movie are not representative for the rest of the movie. Since the director of this movie died before he could complete this movie, it is explained that the movie is shown to you in its uncomplete state. First of all they show some photos of the director and start the movie with a photo-based introduction. I assume this is done because this part of the movie was not filmed yet when the director passed away. And this introduction of around 8 minutes is not representative for the rest of the movie. So please take this into account when you start watching this movie.

During watching the movie, other unfinished scenes are also substituted with photos and a voice-over that explains what the original idea was for those missing scenes. But this will be only short "interruptions" that are unlike the first 8 minutes.

What though is completed, are all scenes in the Auschwitz concentration camp. And I must say that it is excellent material. Of all the movies and series that I have ever seen, this movie seems to contain the most accurate of how the camp really looked like. The layout of the ramp, the way arriving people had to walk to get to the crematoria, the downwards stairs that functioned as the entrance of the gas chambers... they are all like the real Auschwitz.

Even the infamous and much feared "Block 11" - the so-called "death block" - is shown in the movie. This block is where many people ended up being killed or tortured to death. The movie also has an accurate view of the "death wall", which is used for shooting people. And it is the first time that I see the so-called "standing cells", with its low doors that people had to crawl through to enter. Cells where people were left standing many days with no possibility whatsoever to lie down. And people where left in such conditions - in the dark and even without food - until they died an agonizing death.

One may think that it is an unattractive watch because the movie is black-and-white. Another pretty valid argument may be that the movie is unfinished and with its 1 hour duration doesn't even meet the 1.5 hour duration of the typical feature-length movie. But I think we have here an excellent opportunity to see how life in Auschwitz may have been like. So I therefore think that it belongs in any serious list of WW2 movies.

I am not going to give away the details of the storyline itself, which would spoil the watch. I though want to say, what I think that the purpose of this movie is. And it is to show how warped the reality of some SS camp guards is. And that, even many years after the war ended.

I really get the idea that the director wants to show us that there were SS guards that saw some people as their personal pets (or personal slaves). It is those same guards that "play around" with these "pets" until they lose interest and kill them. As such, this movie shows not only the overal inhumane conditions of life in Auschwitz, but also the large differences in how people were treated.

Combined with some very decent acting, this movie deserves a score of 6.5/10, thereby just barely making it an IMDb rating of 7 stars. And of course I needed to include the facts that it is incomplete. But this score is in my opinion very decent for its current state.

Were it not for the untimely death of the director, I think we would have ended up with an 8-star IMDb movie that would have been known to a large public.

Despite it's visual beauty and depth, possibly should have remained in its incomplete form

[Polaris_DiB · 6/10 · 6 March 2008]

It is very unfortunate that this movie wasn't finished, but it's also a little bit more unfortunate that people chose to finish it to the extant state it currently holds. Andrzej Munk's bits and pieces about a Nazi Concentration Camp officer and her relationship to a young Jewish woman she seems somewhat obsessed with has some quite obvious power. What he managed to capture before his untimely death is gorgeous moments of uncertainty, uncertainty in the actions, in the motivations, and in the ambiguous acting of the lead character. To be sure, the finished product would have had a lot to say about the strange relationship between life and death the Nazi's had while running the camps.

Unfortunately, he died before he finished. So others took on the task of finishing it, filling the holes with sometimes literal voice-over ruminations of what Munk might have intended. So we have the intentional ambiguity of the primary text and the ambiguity of what that "intentional" was, meaning we're basically treated to an incomplete movie that basically begs for us to try to figure out how to complete it ourselves. The problem with that is that we already have that historical narrative with the Holocaust anyway, and the nature of the imagery Munk shot shows that he was leading somewhere significant.

For one thing, much of the horrible imagery of the Holocaust, the stuff that's become trope for narratives about it, is kept in the background: the foreground is the face of the actress Alecsandra Slazka, which is achingly compelling and probably the reason why others felt it was necessary to finish the work despite itself. Many of the actions are not actually resolved, and plot holes and gaps that are literally unfilmed parts of the plots and missing imagery leave some unintended ambiguities that simply detract from the main story. It's clear that Munk was going somewhere. This film doesn't take it there. So it's kind of depressing to watch it go nowhere.

--PolarisDiB

Cinematic Fragments

[liehtzu · 9/10 · 1 December 1999]

It's difficult to make an accurate assessment of this film because it's incomplete. In fact, it's far from complete. Still, from the pieces of what is left we can see that "Passenger" may well have turned out to be a masterpiece. Like Jean Vigo, Andrzej Munk was considered a cinematic genius who died too soon (in a car crash in 1960). Munk is less well known than Vigo but he is still important, especially in the development of Polish film. "Passenger" is the story of a German woman on a cruise-liner who catches a glimpse of who she believes to be a Jewish girl she was in charge of at a concentration camp during the war. She recounts to her husband in flashback the story of how she tried to protect the girl from her vicious captors. Later on though, in another flashback, we see what really happened: the woman was not the girl's protector, but a sadist who relished her position of authority and her control over the lives of the prisoners she guarded. The cruise-liner scenes are all done using still shots with a narrator (or, the "restorer" of the film) trying to decipher how exactly Munk intended to piece the film together, while the flashback scenes are actual moving images, shot in fine black and white widescreen compositions. As the "narrator" tries to understand the film, what it would have become, so do we as viewers. In this way the film itself becomes perhaps even more labyrinthine than it would have been had Munk completed it, and we have an added level of mystery that is as frustrating as it is exciting. The incomplete film entices us to guess how it would have turned out, and while its certainly not a substitute for the completed film, this fragmented "Passenger" is brilliant and tantalizing nonetheless.

Dream of a Nightmare

[Thorsten_B · 9/10 · 27 January 2006]

In what was to be his final, incomplete film, Andrzej Munk gives an insight into an "island in time", as the narrator calls it. A woman on an ocean cruiser meets what seems to be a person from her own past - a past where she was overseer in the Auschwitz concentration camp, and the other a prisoner. They were bond together by a strange link, which in the view of guard (Liza) was generally build up by some sort of respect and protection, whereas the actual events that follow Liza reminiscences leave no doubt about her participation in the inhumanity and her guild. From the point of view of Marta, the surviver (or is it someone else?), the "relationship" was different. Munks pictures show us two sides of the story in a dream-like atmosphere: Black and white, eerie music, haunting pictures. Though a totally different content, the aesthetic atmosphere recalls 'La Jetee' by Chris Marker, filmed around the same time. In all, a short but intense viewing experience that achieves great emotional impact. Way ahead of it's time.

Passenger

[Pavan4315 · 31 December 2014]

This movie primarily deals with recollections of memories through a series of still images and documentary style story-telling, as we see a woman traveling on a ship narrating the events of her life to her husband, after a chance meeting with a person aboard the ship, who bears resemblance to a Jewish prisoner at Auschwitz she had once saved, during her tenure as a Nazi officer. The film is all but an expanded portrayal of a chance meeting with a stranger aboard a ship, who somewhat bears a stark resemblance to a past acquaintance, strictly dealing with recollection and recounting of memories. This film also happens to be one of Andrzej Munk's unfinished works, setting the tone for the film in terms of the filmmaker's unfinished goals and dreams. Munk's friends took it upon themselves to finish this project as an ode to a visionary filmmaker, who met a premature end to his life. This piece of work not only reflects the protagonist's memories and trauma, but also that of the filmmaker, Andrzej Munk. The protagonist, now a retired Nazi SS officer, is aboard a ship with her husband, sharing figments of her experiences at a Jewish prison at Auschwitz, where she had certain personal encounters and conversations with a Jewish convict, who had everything but freedom. Although, at the helm of the story, it is a fleeting moment or a passing moment at its best, the film captures a score of unspoken emotions and sentiments. What the film tries to capture is a vague retelling of an incident wherein a person whom we believe to be a past acquaintance, could be more than what meets the eye. What makes it more intriguing is the prospect of reconciliation or reuniting of two opposing or similar sentiments or feelings. The film is unique in its storytelling and visual style as it follows a non-linear narrative with narration and documentary-style flip book image storytelling. The unfinished segments of Munk's film have been filled with pictures and artist's impressions of sequences to give the story a more coherent sensibility and feel. However, the segments that Munk himself had shot are a treat to watch, as he had tried to look at a chance meeting with a stranger bearing a resemblance, to be nothing but a fleeting or a passing moment, yet arrive at a point where the character consciences come to a consensus or maybe even come to terms with the harsh realities and truths that they were previously unaware of. Since the film primarily deals with the resurfacing of thoughts ignited by an external agent, in this case, the chance encounter on the ship, it is the utmost responsibility of the film to weave all nostalgic events and lost memories in realist terms, and in totality. Also, this film deals with the plights and sufferings of a country in general and its people in specific. Hence,it is important to observe the intricacies that the above specified film has to offer.

Missing masterpiece?

[allenrogerj · 6/10 · 19 January 2007]

We can't judge this film because it was unfinished and it may well have been a good career move for Munk to die before he finished it. What we have and what we imagine of the rest is a little masterpiece, but I can't help wondering whether it could have been tied together and made into a unified whole. It's got Munk's wonderful camera movements and his chracteristic concentration on faces, but I wonder what he would have done with the rest of the film.

It's worth remembering that Lisa's self-accusing account of her behaviour is every bit as subjective as her self-excusing one. In fact, it could be that there was no Marta or that Lisa never was a concentration camp guard and is imagining everything in the film.

A Complete Film

[jromanbaker · 10/10 · 22 November 2021]

I have no idea what the final result would have been if Munk had lived and ' completed ' this masterpiece. For me thanks to those who were dedicated enough to make a completion they have one hundred per cent achieved it. Seeing it again in 2021 the early 1960's is well past, and like old photographs the mystery of what really happened when a former bodyguard sees the woman she has both perhaps helped, and yet sadistically so, is well conveyed. Her horror at herself is shown quite clearly in two of the stills that accompany this part of the film, and the further past is both tortured and alive in her head. This is conveyed as narrative and she spares herself nothing. The people seen going to their deaths; the patting of the guard dog's head by a child as she makes her way to annihilation and the man who casually throws an arm back into a truck full of the dead. She sees it all and as if looking through her stills of self confession to her appalled husband we too see the narrative move like a film usually moves. Aleksandra Slaska in this role is above criticism, so well does she attain authenticity. There is even a love story to be recalled; her prisoner's lover who she encourages to see the woman she is protecting, and there too her pain at not being loved herself is paramount to her. Unbearable to watch we bear it as she must do for the rest of her life. As I said the film is complete and many will disagree but it is my firm opinion. A film like no other it should never disappear or be inaccessible. But what did happen in that camp is subjective to her memory and the facts may have been even more dreadful than we see. It can perhaps be never understood in its totality; the jigsaw puzzle of our humanity needing an eternity of compassion to be made whole.

As interesting as it is unfinished

[Jeremy_Urquhart · 7/10 · 6 August 2022]

Passenger is a Polish film about a German ex-officer at a concentration camp who sees someone she believes to be an ex-inmate on board a cruise ship. From there, she recounts her experience during the war, and the odd dynamic she had with this one particular prisoner.

It only runs an hour long, and is very upfront about the fact it's an unfinished film, due to the director suddenly dying during production. The people who picked up the pieces and edited into what it is today try to work this into the film via a narration which adds some subtext, and tries to link what happened to the film to the themes of the film's story, to mixed results.

I guess an attempt at acknowledging the film's backstory and working it into the film was better than nothing, but it might strain a little in the closing narration (especially when the narrator also stops speaking mid-sentence, then the film ends).

But for what it is, it's still quite good. Might well have been even better had all the scenes been filmed, but there was certainly enough here for a compelling, semi-experimental hour-long film.

Passenger

[jboothmillard · 5/10 · 18 February 2016]

I found this Polish film in the 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die book, I read that the director Andrzej Munk was partway through making this film, when he was killed in a car crash, Witold Lesiewicz completed the film with the footage available and imagery. Basically German woman Liza (Aleksandra Slaska) is coming back to Europe on a transatlantic ship, she has recollections from the past come back to she notices and recognises the face of another woman, Marta (Anna Ciepielewska). Liza is married, she explains to her husband that during the Second World War that she been an overseer at Auschwitz concentration camp, but she also says that she has saved the life of Marta, a former inmate at the camp. Also starring Jan Kreczmar as Walter, Irena Malkiewicz as Oberaufseherin Madel, Leon Pietraszkiewicz as Commandant Lagerkommandant Grabner and Janusz Bylczynski as Capo. The film is made up of the remaining footage filmed by the director before his death and still images from the true events, it certainly delivers the message that the Holocaust may belong to history, but it will never be forgotten, the camp sequences are certainly horrific, overall it was an interesting enough incomplete documentary style wartime drama. Worth watching!

Ahh don't see this film, its pointless.

[SomethinglikeSarah · 3/10 · 21 December 2006]

What the hell is this? I can appreciate a good avant-garde film but this just takes the mickey. Firstly its only half a film because unfortunately the director died before it was complete, there's hardly any dialogue and it kinda just jumps all over the place. Cinematicly its brilliant but the content isn't so good. I would direct people to 'Fateless' which is a much better independent Hungarian film. Yes I appreciate it was made in the 1960s at a time where there wasn't hardly any films on the subject of the holocaust and in that context then I would say its pretty ground breaking, however, i think audiences are harder to please these days and so you might end up just a little confused wondering why you spent the last hour on this film.

Don't bother watching this unless you have no other options. I can't believe i wasted £10 on this.