Review of Blow-Up (1966) by Elvira B — 22 Mar 2008

Blow-Up disappointed me quite a bit. I was expecting something more like Eclisse or La Notte. Truthfully, all of Antonioni's films are very slow, but the ones I had seen until this point had been at least engaging; Blow-Up managed to flat-out bore me.

The whole story, if there is one, is that a hip London fashion photographer (who cultivates the art of "serious" photography on the side) thinks some pictures he took of Vaness Redgrave and some guy at a park are evidence to a murder. As exciting as the whole voyeur/rear window scheme often proves to be, the script manages to slowly kill the appeal. Ultimately, Blow-Up is a fantastic visual recollection of the 60s London scene and little more. Women with tons of eyeliner, fake eyelashes and enviable haircuts, and that's it.

David Hemmings really sucks, although I am unsure about whether it is his character who fails or the fact is that he puts no heart into the performance. He is utterly uninteresting, supposedly a womanizer but somehow absolutely lacking of charm. People like that exist, I understand, although if on top of that you give the man tons of cynicism but virtually no lines to keep the audience awake, we all slip together into a trance and wake up when two aspiring models decide to thrash the photographer's studio, making a lot of noise and giggling stupidly. Then our hero proceeds to engage in a suggested threesome and possibly statutory rape.

I admit to having felt some tension and vague, intermitent hints of wonder, but all in all I didn't find Blow-Up interesting in the least: if I had to prepare an exposition about 60s fashion I would probably turn to it for documentation. I also give it half a star for the great Herbie Hancock score and the music, all in all, as well as the decor and photography. Unfortunately, the philosophy and the emotional despair in Eclisse that practically permeated the screen and that made me an Antonioni fan :) are absent from this one.