Blow-Up (1966) Review

Blow-Up (1966)

Blow-Up follows Thomas, a photographer, who, after taking some candid pictures of a couple in the park, develops them, only to learn that he may have caught a murder on film. 

What’s so intriguing about Antonioni’s Blow-Up is that for a murder mystery, the murder is never the point of the story (if there even is one). In fact, the murder doesn’t even take place until well over halfway through the movie, marking it more as a point of interest than leading with it towards some grand conclusion. No, the film (like I said, if anything) is about Thomas and his general dissatisfaction with everything around him, to the point where he can hardly sit still. Always moving at a breakneck pace from one project to the other, hardly ever stopping to actually finish the previous one. 

That is until he unknowingly photographs a murder in the park. This action, and it’s revelation, as he hurriedly runs between rooms to uncover it’s grim secrets, lost in the process, turns Thomas from a distasteful artist into one of passion, where he thinks not of the fame, consequences, or outcome, just his art and the beauty of it all. That is, until it doesn’t. The evidence is stolen (or so we’re lead to believe), forcing another layer to this mystery of whether or not all of this happened or if Thomas, in a moment to be truly happy imagined it all. And now, just like everything that has come before, and as is the way of life, he moves on. There is no grand finale, no moment of revelation, just a metaphorical game of tennis by a group of mimes that cements the idea that our reality is highly influenced on what we choose to believe. 

Blow-Up sports an interesting cast as well, starring John Castle, Peter Bowles, Gillian Hills, Sarah Miles, Jane Birkin, Vanessa Redgrave, and David Hemmings. Hemmings is a true wonder to watch here, energetically perverse though oddly charming, drawing you in completely to everything that passes his vision to where you feel every emotion, thought, and feeling that washes him over. 

Blow-Up, directed by Michelangelo Antonioni, is really the antithesis of a murder mystery, more of what would really happen in such a situation. No happy ending, no aha! moment, simply an artist returning to the mundanity of his life, trapped in a cycle of sought out passion. 

9.1/10