Passenger (2009) Synopsis & Summary

Aleksandra Slaska portrays a German matron taking a long ocean voyage with her husband. While roaming the deck, she spots a passenger she thinks she recognizes. That she does: The passenger (Anna Ciepielewska) had been an inmate at Auchwitz, where Slaska served as a guard. An alternately realistic and illusory study in guilt and retribution, The Passenger (original title: Pasazerka) was halfway through production in 1961 when its director, Andrzej Munk, was killed in an auto accident. Munk's friends loyally tried to complete the project, bridging a few scenes with still pictures (in the manner of "restored" film classics like the 1937 Lost Horizon and the 1954 A Star is Born). Finally released in Poland in 1963, The Passenger didn't make it to the US until 1970. - Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide