Admittedly, it is unsettling to watch how he creeps into Lilli and Philipp’s lives. A delightful scene where the three of them ride bicycles together is reminiscent of Truffaut’s Jules and Jim. Without the serial killer plot, the relationship that grows between the three leads is often quite charming. Oh, and he has bad dreams now and then, usually after killing someone. The film begins with him delivering a nonsensical monologue about how his “lust to kill” is “connected to certain star constellations” (and also the planet Pluto) and how maybe if he finds a pattern he can “control the lust.” And that is the entire psychological motivation that this film provides. There is no insight into what makes his mind work at all. The Passenger features a charismatic monster who kills innocent people for no reason. He was also a great antihero because the people he killed were murderers and child molesters who deserved their fate. The Showtime series, Dexter, provided a very elaborate – and fascinating - backstory that made it absolutely clear why Dexter had to kill. A cautionary tale? Beware of wolves in sheep’s clothing? This is a film about a serial killer of whom we know nothing. I am not sure what the point of this movie was. Nick tells the audience that, while he wants to put it off for as long as possible, their deaths will be “poetic” works of art. In the meanwhile, he cruises and kills a few strangers to pass the time. He genuinely likes both of his new companions but he also plans to kill them before he leaves Berlin. He rents a room from Philipp (who has a "good feeling" about Nick) and then begins to systematically seduce both Philipp (Urs Stämpfli) and his friend, Lilli (Lyn Femme). Nick (Niklas Peters) is visiting Berlin for a couple weeks, allegedly to purchase a condo for his father. This was not the movie I was expecting but that can sometimes be a good thing. ![]() Neither does the trailer (although the trailer does end with the blood-covered protagonist washing himself by a stream.) I am not spoiling a major plot twist Nick confesses this to the audience during the film’s first minutes - just after killing a male lover. ![]() What the DVD box doesn’t say is that Nick is a serial killer. The blurb on the DVD box describes how a mysterious stranger named Nick invades the lives of Philipp, a professional photographer, and Lilli, a beautiful actress, and lures them into his “manipulative (and deadly) game of love.” Stories about disruptive strangers are often intriguing one of the best is queer filmmaker Pier Paolo Pasolini’s 1968 Teorema wherein Terence Stamp seduces all the members of an uptight, bourgeois family. If someone out there is able to find any point to The Passenger, the newest film by German director Tor Iben ( The Visitor), please let me know if I’m missing something. Nor is it the good psychological mind-fuck that it should have been. However, this one is not a good suspense thriller. I like a good suspense thriller as much as the next guy.
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