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Blow-Up Customer Reviews (1 - 3 of 61 Reviews)

a film in which little happens, slowly
Nonetheless, it's a good watch. What makes the film for me is the fact that the lead actor is excellent, even when he's spending ten minutes of screen time just developing film. The film is un-selfconsciously arty, if such a thing is possible. That works in the sense that the camera angles are always interesting and every shot is fun to look at. On the other hand, there's some stuff that makes little sense. The movie is bookended by mimes, and even the film historian on the commentary track seemed to have little idea what their point is. Also, while the film was undoubtedly daring when it came out in 1966, the scenes of debauchery are quaint and almost comical today. The datedness makes the film a good cultural artifact of its time.

If you can accept the film's glacial pacing on its own terms, the superb cinematography and surreal aspects of the movie are rather hypnotic, making this a memorable viewing experience.

The Artist as Detective
Thomas is a vain and self-centered fashion photographer in London during the swinging sixties. But he obviously wants a life with deeper meaning--he poses as a factory worker to take gritty black and white photos. And one day he gets out of his Rolls-Royce (or is it a Bentley?) and wanders aimlessly through a park snapping photos.

Thomas' desolate photos of the empty park show his loneliness and ennui. But as he develops the photos, he discovers that he may have photographed a man's murder. The dead man whose photograph Thomas takes in the park represents the deadness of Thomas' own emotional life. As he compulsively enlarges the photographs in search of the "truth" of what happened, a beautiful, mysterious woman, Jane shows up and demands the negatives. Jane also seduces him; this is a reversal of Thomas' usual exploitative relationships with women--she's turned the tables on him. Thomas, perhaps for the first time in his life, is truly emotionally engaged. But Jane takes off with the negatives and his prints and Thomas is left alone again, but now with a new capacity to feel. Where he goes with it is up to him. Of course, since this film is by Antonioni, it's visually mesmerizing and what "happens" is beside the point--Antonioni's films are always about a process of becoming. His characters have a way of never reaching their destinations. In Antonioni's films, the journey is the destination.

Blow-Up is also about the sense of time passing--Thomas and Jane are young and beautiful, but their youth is as elusive and fleeting as the mysterious images Thomas takes in the park. The dead man Thomas photographed is middle-aged; it's an omen of Thomas' future he has to face and accept. Antonioni's mod London looks quaint and dated today--but in a way that only increases the film's allure. Like all of Antonioni's films, it's a quirky masterpiece.

Funky 60s Look, Some Interesting Scenes, Not Much Else
Gotta love the flashback to the sixties that is reflected in every scene of this movie (of course, it was just a product of its time--the mid-60s--it's not a film trying to recapture the era..it IS the era). Still the storyline is slim and the going slow. Interesting scenes appear here and there. The parts are definitely better than the whole. There's an intriguing idea in here it just never gets developed as it should. Actually, thinking about it in retrospect is more interesting than watching it was. It's subtle, I'll grant you that. And a nice character study....and yet....?

We were counting the minutes left in the film by the end ("Only 25 minutes left in the film and then we can get back to our lives!") so that's not a good sign.

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