Every three or four years I post the mesmerizing single-shot finale from Michelangelo Antonioni‘s The Passenger — six minutes and thirty-six seconds, slow and deliberate and about as fascinating as this kind of “one-er” has ever been.

I keep posting it because someone who’s never heard of this film might be inspired to watch it. And yet I honestly suspect that your typical Millennial or Zoomer would not have the patience to stick with this 1975 release. Plus it’s a lot less catchy and diverting than Blow-Up, which most Antonioni novices respect and appreciate once they finally sit down with it.

The Passenger is a little tough to watch, and is certainly not a grabber. You have to commit yourself to the whole thing start to finish or it won’t work. It represents a good kind of narrative slowness…the nutritious kind.

I’ve always regarded The Passenger as a despairing mood-trip thing…end-of-the-road nihilism for people of taste. Like Michel Franco‘s Sundown, it’s a “fuck it” film that stays with you.

An hour ago I happened upon “The Passenger: One Epic Shot,” an ASC 8.24.20 article by David E. Williams. The subtitle reads “How a cinematographic challenge became a sublime piece of production virtuosity in the hands of [dp] Luciano Tovoli.”

The article contains a great shot of the ceiling-mounted camera rig that allowed the shot to happen.

From movie-locations.com: “The ‘Hotel de la Gloria’, supposedly in ‘Osuna’ (much further west, toward Seville), was actually in the village of Vera, about 40 miles northeast of Almería. It stood opposite the bullring on Calle Mayor. The oldest bullring in the province, dating from 1879, it’s been restored, and now houses a small museum of bullfighting memorabilia.

“The site of the ‘Gloria’, though, where Antonioni ends the film with the justly famous tracking shot, has now been redeveloped.”