Wendy and Lucy VS. The Passenger
There are several similarities and differences in movies Wendy and Lucy and The Passenger. These include elements such as camera work, locations, costumes, and sounds.These two films depict struggle and experience, where it takes place, how the people dress, and the music. We can compare these two films to real life. Wendy and Lucy, directed by Kelly Reichardt in 2008, looks closely at the life of a struggling girl who is travelling with her dog Lucy. I know so much about Wendy, although this movie tells me so little. I know almost nothing about where she came from, what her life was like, her views about the world. Yet I know everything about Wendy at this moment. The fact that she is stuck in an Oregon town, lost her dog, her car has broken, she is hungry, quiet and filled with desperation. The Passenger, directed by Michelangelo Antonioni in 1975 follows a day in the life of David Locke who is a journalist that steals another person’s identity. Although The Passenger does not present a lot of background information, I know that David who is the main character of this movie wants to escape from his life and experience being someone else. I believe that both films share themes of individuals being on the run from their pasts.
In Wendy and Lucy film, Wendy walks with her dog Lucy, the camera is tracking them from a distance. She throws a stick, Lucy brings it back, and they enjoy the sunny, easy motion in Oregon. Lucy then rushes ahead, Wendy follows her calling “loo”, her voice high and gentle. When Wendy finds Lucy, she sees a group of homeless people pet Lucy. She waits and watches through tree branches. In that scene, the shots were taken in a way that the viewer could see them sitting there just like Wendy is seeing them. It also captures Wendy’s surroundings from distance that showed those people and no one else. On the other hand, In the movie The Passenger, Locke hires a boy to lead him out to desert. In that scene, the camera was moving slowly capturing the desert and Locke’s surroundings. The shots were taken from distance just like in Wendy and Lucy, and in a way that showed only emptiness that surrounded him. However, the camera did not show us the places as if Locke was seeing them like in Wendy and Lucy, it just captured him looking devastated after being abandoned and what surrounded him.
At this point, Wendy’s movement stops. When the car won’t start, and the guard tells her she has to park across the street. She then tries to steal a can of dog food from a local grocery store, where she got caught. However, we never see how she really does it, until a young worker stops her outside the door, and takes her inside to face his manager. When the worker explains what she did, she tells them,” I am not from here, sir, I can’t set an example.” Wendy’s character is very quiet, but in that scene, she seemed panicked. She was calm through the conversation, but it was obvious she was terrified of what would happen. Locke in The Passenger movie, is a very quiet person as well. The scene where he went back to the hotel, found a dead stranger, and switched identities with him, was as if nothing happened. He seemed calm and normal through the entire process. The shots showed him switching the passports without any hesitation. While Wendy was panicking and seemed as if she did not know what to do in that scene, Locke was the opposite. He knew exactly what he was doing.
When Wendy was at the police station, the camera was shooting at her closely that we could see her cheeks flushing, her eyes focused on the wall clock, and when she was on the bus going back to where she left Lucy, Wendy looked pressed against the window. The camera was so close to her face showing her sad facial expressions. When she gets to the store, Lucy is gone. Wendy’s new goal was to find Lucy and nothing else mattered to her at that point. Deep inside, she did not give up. Wendy’s character looked like a person that was struggling in life. The way she dressed, talked and even when she was asked about her home address, all she said was,” I am just passing through” but you could still see sadness as her expressions, it seemed she was hiding the fact she did not know what tomorrow brings. These real and genuine emotions make the viewer believe in her story. Although Locke’s character seemed more confident and less nervous than Wendy’s, his facial expressions and actions truly reflect how he feels. An example of that would be a scene of Locke meeting the two men regarding some business. Locke in that scene manages to stay calm, but his behavior tells us he is panicking inside. The camera was on him closely when he spoke and back at him when he reacted. When Locke discovers he is a gun dealer, the look on his face showed how surprised he was. He manages to stay calm throughout that scene. We could see him sweating and stumbling over his words. He acted the way anyone would have acted in real life. Not saying much, and just pretend as if everything was fine. He played along with them.Wendy and Locke’s, reactions, behaviors were all consistent with their dialog, the way they looked and presented themselves to others.
Wendy and Lucy film is not about Wendy going to Alaska to obtain a job, rather it is about her struggling in life and overcoming difficulties, and that is exactly what Wendy did. As the opening scene is tied back into the film’s end, Wendy left alone on a freight train and for the first time she did not seem scared. On the contrary, The Passenger is about a man who wants to experience and see life through another person’s eyes. Sadly, Locke died in the movie.To Wendy those difficult circumstances she went through represented a new path for her, but to Locke switching identities was his end.
The way and where the film Wendy and Lucy was shot, made the entire story believable and consistent with her situation. The film was shot in a small town near a train yard, and that made it seem realistic. Some elements helped make the story seem more real, such as the lightning that made Wendy’s face look sad throughout the movie, the focus of the camera that mainly focused on Wendy but also on showing her surroundings all the time. And the sound of trains passing by, and her humming were also the two main sounds in the movie. The Passenger movie location was also consistent with its story. The movie was shot in Africa, and the camera slowly shows the viewers the desert that surrounds Locke. People were not very fluent in English, and the main element was the fan and the fly that was making noises in the movie.
Even though the films have their differences they both tell so little but show everything through action and movement. In Wendy and Lucy, Wendy did not choose to be poor. According to Joel Blackledge, “Wendy and Lucy lays bare the reality that poverty is a condition of circumstance rather than character.” In the Passenger movie, that was the opposite of Wendy’s life situation, Locke chose to do what he did and never had regrets. Therefore, I agree with this statement by Martin Walsh, “ such a radical severance from the structures of one’s identity leads clearly to disaster.”
References
http://lwlies.com/articles/wendy-and-lucy-kelly-reichardt-michelle-williams/
http://www.btchflcks.com/2016/03/kelly-reichardts-wendy-and-lucy-heartbreak-in-a-panning-shot.html#.Wmdp5zdG1hE
http://sensesofcinema.com/2015/feature-articles/michelangelo-antonioni-the-truth-about-the-passenger/
http://diaryofascreenwriter.blogspot.com/2012/11/antonioni-discusses-passenger.html
http://lwlies.com/articles/wendy-and-lucy-kelly-reichardt-michelle-williams/
http://www.btchflcks.com/2016/03/kelly-reichardts-wendy-and-lucy-heartbreak-in-a-panning-shot.html#.Wmdp5zdG1hE
http://sensesofcinema.com/2015/feature-articles/michelangelo-antonioni-the-truth-about-the-passenger/
http://diaryofascreenwriter.blogspot.com/2012/11/antonioni-discusses-passenger.html