Moon Child sadly failed at the box office, turning Villaronga overnight from boy wonder into unemployable auteur maudit. Several attempted projects during the first half of the 1990s - e.g. adaptations of novels by Mercè Rodoreda (La mort i la primavera, 1986) and Hanns Heinz Ewers (Der Zauberlehrling oder Die Teufelsjäger, 1909) - had proved unrealisable. To keep on working, he accepted this commission and did a decent craftsman's job with Simenon's Le passager clandestin, a 1947 mystery set in part on a South Sea island. From this story about the death of a movie distribution magnate, the aftermath was inevitable. Yet Villaronga had to accept what he was handed (plot was never Simenon's strength). The direction, on the other hand, shows a master at play, especially when there's no dialogue to deal with and everything depends on visual storytelling or just sheer pictorial splendour.
- Director
- Agustí Villaronga
- Countries of production
- France, Spain
- Year
- 1995
- Festival Edition
- IFFR 2011
- Length
- 96'
- Medium
- Betacam SP
- International title
- El pasajero clandestino
- Language
- Catalan
- Producer
- Agustí Villaronga
- Sales
- Massa d'Or Produccions
- Screenplay
- Agustí Villaronga, André Graill, Pierre Javaux, based on the novel by Georges Simenon
- Cinematography
- Carles Gusi
- Editor
- Amat Carreras, Thierry Dorval
- Production Design
- Llorenç Miquel
- Sound Design
- Gabriel Haoa, André Rigaut
- Music
- Béatrice Thiriet
- Cast
- Simon Callow