The Passing (1983)

The Passing: Directed by John Huckert. With James Carroll Plaster, Welton Benjamin Johnson, John Huckert, Lynn Odell. Two elderly World War II buddies are living – and dying – together in their small home. One becomes a patient where salvage-worthy, older attributes are combined with useable, younger body parts. He returns, unrecognized by the other.

“The Passing is a film without a plot, an experience with seemingly no end. The viewer is just as likely to be bombarded by documentary-style footage of two old men hanging around as he is to watch the grim torture of a rapist, or the psycho-tronic sounds and weird visions of medical instruments. To be honest, I really liked this movie, but I also found it pretty boring, so I would have to watch 15 minutes a day for about a week, watching it in small doses, like reading a chapter a day of a book. But I canu0026#39;t say I didnu0026#39;t find the whole experience mesmerizing. Not having any idea what this movie was about, I first thought it was going to be about demonology, or murder. The film takes its sweet time coming to any semblance of a plot, but even this aspect of the movie isnu0026#39;t handled in any obvious ways, but is rather interpreted by the viewer via sounds and feelings. Never is the plot really intelligible, but never is it really uninteresting either. I donu0026#39;t know what else to say about this movie but that the editing was excellent, the music excellent (both the contrasting 20u0026#39;s and 80u0026#39;s music samples and the scary-as-f88ck syntheziser song that drones through the whole thing) and the two old men were great actors. I really believed for the most part that they were just two old friends hanging out, and there was some documentary team following them around (and this movie was made far before the docudrama fad became cheesy). In fact, the only thing I didnu0026#39;t find so interesting about this movie was the plot, which seemed a little tagged on- but oh well. Itu0026#39;s a shame that someone associated with this movie, the editor at least, didnu0026#39;t go on to greater recognition.”