Thanks for the memories!

It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

This movie was mentioned in one of the "SCTV" show's "Farm Film Report" segments. As Billy Sol Hurok, played by John Candy, said: "I don't know why they call a movie 'Blow-Up' and nothin' blows up. I got my money back on that one.

BLOWUP is a mystery drama film, which in an unconventional way shows us London and important cultural changes in that city. The film rejects emotional turmoils, while glorifies, in a strange way, a visual stimulation and a strange kind of mania. Naturalism, nudity, hedonism, and even a brief, orgiastic romp are very well fit into an indecisive and unpredictable behavior of the characters in this film.Thomas is a a glamorous fashion photographer. He spends the night a doss house where he has taken pictures for a book of art photos. He seems very boring to work with attractive models. Wandering into Maryon Park, he takes photos of two lovers. The woman is furious at being photographed, pursues Thomas, demands his film and ultimately tries to snatch his camera. He refuses and photographs her as she runs off. Back at his studio, the woman from the park arrives asking desperately for the film. Their conversation is full of a deceit and lies. She's leaving. He, after developing the film, notices, on one of the photos a man with a pistol lurking love couple...This melodramatic mystery is full of a uncontrolled wandering and vague symbolism. It is difficult to make a comparison with a cultural revolution. The plots are permeating between curiosity and concern. However, the authentic scenery is beautiful, the colors composition is excellent, even the accessories are very interesting. Well, there's a lot of fashion and a little bit of rock and roll. The characterization is not satisfactory.David Hemmings as Thomas is an eccentric, cold and frustrated photographer. His aggressiveness has no clear message. His talent is in some kind of a conflict with his curiosity. He is not a lonely young man. Simply, he is devoted to his equipment and props, more than people around him. Vanessa Redgrave as Jane is a factor of unrest in Thomas's character. She is a seductive and cuddly, but aloof young woman. Sarah Miles as Patricia is a sight for sore eyes, which is, unfortunately, emotionally washed.

Michelangelo Antonioni is a director whose work(after only two films) I highly admire, but has so far left me feeling cold and uncaring. First things first Blow-Up is a brilliantly constructed film. Set in London during the 'swinging sixties' the film follows David Hemmings fashion photographer Thomas. Whilst out shooting various locations Thomas comes across a couple in a park, piqued by his interest he begins to photograph them. When he's caught by Jane(Vanessa Redgrave) she demands they be handed over. As he becomes curious by her erratic behaviour, he hands over the pictures but keeps the negatives. Upon blowing them up, he starts to realise something more sinister may of been in play.Blow-Up is a film of it's time, and in some places it hasn't aged well. The films pacing was at times frustratingly ponderous. Though the film felt unfocused by design, it still left me itching to see what was going to happen. I also don't think it helped that I watched Brian De Palma's remake Blow-Out first(which I preferred far more then this film). Blow-Up is more interested in the sex, drugs and rock and roll of the time, spending large portions just hanging out with it's main character, as he goes about his daily activities. Whilst I did enjoy parts of this carefree attitude to film-making. I was more interested in the potential murder plot.Part of me thinks that I went into this film expecting something I wasn't going to get, whilst that's probably true to some degree. I still stand by my original assessment that Antonioni is a director whose work for me is admirable but ultimately unlikable.

Here we have Antonioni's response to the counter-culture that ironically, caused such a stir back in the 60s because of the way it took on the Production Code. Hooligans yell and scream from their joy-rides and mod icons parade the streets, but London is filmed as is; grey, mostly lifeless, static. Even the appearance of a rock show featuring the Yardbirds is stifling. Thomas sees all this and has become a shell, dismissive of the entire culture and sighing as he leaves the models in their bizarre costume and pose. It's just for the money, he mopes. The best part of the film comes when something exciting jolts his life; a well-edited and directed sequence which points towards an apparent murder attempt in the background of his photos. But of course the theme here is that the further he blows up his pictures, the less clear things become. The fuzzy details stare back and mock him and the futility and aimlessness of his endeavour. The photos disappear overnight, as does the body, like the gods are playing a cruel joke. There is a tension here in Antonioni's criticism. Thomas is used as a proxy to survey the emptiness of this lifestyle, droning on and on in his robotic enthusiasm (even as he phones a friend about his shocking discovery it is dull). But there is a hypocrisy here, in how he is just as privy to jump into a shallow, sexualised persona at moment's notice. He straddles Veruschka and chants affirmation like he is climaxing, then immediately after the shot is captured gets up and leaves her on the ground. The most cringe-worthy segment is when he pushes together the two giggling wannabe models into fighting, stripping, and eventually a threesome, then post-coital is immediately again cold and dismissive. Antonioni wants to have his cake and eat it too. Another tension is how Antonioni wants to attack the decadence of the culture at its core but somehow relents on its graphic nature; see the ludicrous way in which Redgrave 'opens up' over a smoke yet is still shyly covering her breasts. The same woman who would chase down a photographer to cover up her affair, and then try to sleep with him anyway. Yep. Antonioni can only see this world's artificiality and emptiness, but it is fairly harmless anyway - there's not even any edginess to critique. The ambiguity and nature of the film throws its ideas up into the air for a stream of nonsense jargon marvelling at what it brings up. Some say the murder is a manifestation of the media's tendency to 'blow up' any minor transgression and its emptiness into moral outrage and panic. An event is not important until it has been captured on film or written on. Others say that we perceive our own realities and that the entire film save for the final tennis strokes are a figment of his imagination, a reaction to his spiritual malaise. Still others maintain that it is not a murderer in the bushes, but Antonioni himself with a hand-held camera, peering back into the layered reality. And there are the usual buzz words which carry a vague profundity. Self- reflexivity. Phenomenological neorealism. Synthetic stimulation. Magical Realism. The film is so pre-loaded that it becomes easy pickings to pluck a section and go to town with it.