For the provocative questions it asks about identity and brute force, David Cronenberg's
A History of Violence is the best movie of the year so far. That's what makes the rerelease of Michelangelo Antonioni's 1975 landmark,
The Passenger, such a well-timed companion piece. The script, co-written by Antonioni and Peter Wollen, focuses on a TV journalist (a superb Jack Nicholson) who steals the identity of a dead man and embarks on a new life, only to find violent surprises on his trail.