Blow-up

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Blow-up – (1966) - Michelangelo Antonioni

Antonioni’s 1966 art-house thriller is certainly an iconic movie for its pure style.  He captures the hedonistic 60’s London life and gives David Hemmings a wonderful role as the David Bailey-esc photographer. Photographers in the 60’s through to the 90’s were pop star types; worshiped by women and oh boy, did they live the life; I should know, my uncle was one of them.

Blow-up was certainly an influential film; just look at the effect it had on Argento’s work. Argento’s early work for me was stylised and panged of Antonioni flair. Argento even put Hemmings into one of his ‘who dunnit’ type thrillers in the 70’s; Profondo Rosso or Deep Red as it was translated for the global market. In Profondo Rosso, Hemmings is also on the hunt to discover what happened after witnessing a murder.

So, you may ask why I am reviewing a film that is so iconic and was a global hit in the 60’s. The reason is that so few people these days have watched this film although it still has a cult following. The cast includes David Hemmings and Vanessa Redgrave and the score is by...Herbie Hancock, although there is actually very little music throughout the film.    The power comes through the lens which is a feat in itself considering how some films just would not stand up without their amazing scores.

Right, let’s get down to the nitty gritty; if you are watching Blow-up for the first time, please remember this....it is art-house.   Do not expect a tight scripted Hollywood thriller where you will sit up at the end and go ‘that was satisfyingly understandable.’.  There are parts which confuse but Antonioni intends this and it leaves you guessing right up to the end.  I would also class the film as being in the Giallo genre with a London backdrop.  

Hemmings’s character, always working, always studying locations, people, objects, see’s two lovers in the park and decides it is interesting enough to take photos of.    After enlarging the photos in his dark room, he discovers he has inadvertently witnessed and photographed a murder; but who are the people in the picture?  Is it all it seems to be?  Is there really a murder committed or has he misinterpreted the images?  The film and Hemmings’s characters thoughts move in and out of reality whilst slowly piecing the events together.

If you were not alive in the 60’s, this film evokes what London was all about and you can imagine the changes society was witnessing.      1966, the year the film was made was also the year England won the World Cup (football or soccer for those in the US of A).  The country was on a high and Antonioni seized on this period to deliver an incredibly vivid and iconic art film which deserves not to be forgotten by our generation or future generations.  The film’s cover/poster deserves its place in contemporary iconic art alone but it holds a weapon.  It has behind it THE film of the sixties; the film that shows you the sixties existed.  The only other film that evokes such a feeling of this era is the incredible ‘Get Carter’ (1971) "You’re a big man, but you’re out of shape!”,  which is a far darker piece of film making for a tougher, simpler England of the early 70s.

Someone once said that if you can remember the sixties then you weren’t there.  Well, I wasn’t there, just missed, but Blow-up allows us to believe we were; groovy.