Tor Iben | The Passenger / 2012

nick, the strangler

by Douglas Messerli

 

Tor Iben (screenwriter and director) The Passenger / 2012

 

An attractive young man, Nick (Niklas Peters) is in Berlin for a couple weeks, purportedly to look for a condo for his wealthy father. Philipp (Urs Stämpfli), meanwhile, just happens to have an extra room to rent. When Nick shows up to see the room, Philipp inexplicably has “a good feeling” about the newcomer, as he tells his girlfriend Lilli (Lyn Femme), who is skeptical until she meets the stud.

     Unfortunately, we’ve already been told by the central character’s voice that he is a cursed serial killer, who as soon as he develops a close sexual relationship with others is forced to kill them in fairly ritualistic manners usually involving covering himself in their blood. Why German writer/director Tor Iben has been so determined to tell us this from the outset we can’t know, but it essentially takes all the mystery of what bills itself as a thriller. Not that we wouldn’t soon realize what’s in store from other events, as we watch this bisexual killer seduce a cute schoolboy from the local university, playing a kind of delicious hiding game to lure him on, and, after a couple of sexual outings in a park, strangling him to death.

      Phillip also picks up a transvestite prostitute (Thary Plast IC), killing her without even a second round.

      Meanwhile, he makes friends with Philipp, who although straight, photographs only males, and who quickly makes it apparent, through his photographs of his new friend, that he harbors homoerotic if not fully homosexual tendencies. Nick wastes no time after meeting Lilli, whom he quickly beds. Since he appears to truly like both of his new friends, and Lilli, an actor, will not commit to a relationship and Philipp, although clearly attracted to Nick, steers clear of sex, Nick isn’t quite ready, apparently, to kill off this couple.

      And most the rest of the movie—when it doesn’t throw in the ineffective bumbles of the Berlin police to track down the murderer—concerns the budding gay sexuality of Philipp and the increasing discomfit of Lilli with Nick as a heterosexual lover—particularly after he appears to have a serious nose bleeding incident, which we realize is merely the blood of someone he has recently murdered.

      Since we have no idea why this equal opportunity strangler feels compelled to kill and because the script seems disinterested in exploring his sexual lusts in connection to his own multiple sexuality along with his obvious commitment to the process of seduction as opposed to ongoing relationships—all of which might have led us through multiple psychological explanations for his compulsions—we are left with simply counting down the moments until he will turn on his friends.

      At one point when Nick and Phillip are horseplaying together in a stream, we imagine he will drown the photographer, but instead he saves his life, Phillip falling even more in love with his savior and the two moving even closer to sexual interaction. At several points, moreover, he seems about to strangle Lilli in their love-making. But each time Nick pulls back, perhaps just because of the director’s need to extend the playing time of his movie.

      But finally, given that Phillip never seems to break through his heterosexual closet and Lilli reveals that she has never truly felt love for her sexual seducer, we begin not only to lose interest in their interactions but to wonder what this film is truly trying to tell us. Will Phillip’s and Lilli’s reticence save their lives, while those who simply give away their sex remain doomed once they have met up with Nick?

      Critic Michael D. Klemm expresses similar feelings in his 2014 review:

       

“I am not sure what the point of this movie was. A cautionary tale? Beware of wolves in sheep’s clothing? This is a film about a serial killer of whom we know nothing. The Showtime series, Dexter, provided a very elaborate – and fascinating - backstory that made it absolutely clear why Dexter had to kill. He was also a great antihero because the people he killed were murderers and child molesters who deserved their fate. The Passenger features a charismatic monster who kills innocent people for no reason. There is no insight into what makes his mind work at all. 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. Oh, and he has bad dreams now and then, usually after killing someone.”

      It appears Nick, the Strangler, has no more motivation for his killings than Jack, the Ripper.

     Finally, any suspense remaining shift from our wondering when he kill his now close friends, but if he will be compelled to do them in, particularly as long as Phillip remains a non-sexual partner in their Jules and Jim-like threesome.

      After Nick and Phillip have a slight row, Nick goes off, returning to enter Phillip’s bedroom. Phillip apologizes for his behavior. Nick moves closer, beginning to stroke Phillip’s neck and cheek, while Phillip for the first time seems almost ready to offer up what appears to be the inevitable homosexual kiss between the two.

     Is that enough, a final abandonment to seduction, for Nick to follow through with the strangulation which we have been waiting for? Apparently Nick has perceived Phillip’s reaction as the total acceptance of the sexual action and now doesn’t even need the sex to give him permission for the murder. It’s clearly not cock or pussy he’s after but just the sexual desertion of self to lust.

      Lilli’s death follows soon after, and since her involvement with Nick was totally sexual, he goes through the entire ritual of hanging her upon a park tree, draining out her blood upon his body, and washing it away in the nearby river.

      Oddly, the director seems himself to have finally fallen in love with Nick, his camera watching closely as he showers, revealing for the first time his character as fully nude with a sizeable penis.

      When the police, finding both bodies, finally put the facts together, Nick, on his way to Paris, is already at the train station, where he meets another couple, who look even far more innocent than Lilli and Phillip and ready to play along in a real sexual threesome that might, in fact, have resulted in far more interesting if shorter film.

 

Los Angeles, October 19, 2023

Reprinted from World Cinema Review (October 2023).