Review of Blow-Up (1966) by Joanna R — 31 Jul 2008

An award-winning 1966 British-Italian art film directed by Michelangelo Antonioni with fabulous fashion concept, read >>>.

The story concerns a photographer (Hemmings) who may or may not have inadvertently preserved evidence of a murder, which may or may not involve a woman Vanessa (Redgrave) who visits the photographer in his studio. As is typical with Antonioni films, the story does not follow a conventional narrative structure.

As a professional photographer, the main character mixes with the rich and famous in the London of the sixties. One day he chances upon two lovers in a park and takes photos of them. The woman of the couple pursues him, eventually finding his apartment and desperately trying to get the film. This leads the photographer to investigate the film, making blowups (enlargements) of the photos. This process seems to reveal a body, but the director uses the heavy film grain and black and white imagery to obscure the image. This drives the photographer to keep making blowups and try to find the truth.

He does eventually find the body in the park, but this time, unfortunately and surprisingly, he is without his camera. He tries to get a friend to act as witness, but later the body is gone.

Ultimately, the film is about reality and how we perceive it or think we perceive it. This aspect is stressed by the final scene, one of many famous scenes in the film, when the photographer watches a mimed tennis match and, after a moment of amused hesitation, enters the mimes' own version of reality by picking up the invisible ball and throwing it back to the two players. A tight shot shows his continued watching of the match, and, suddenly, we even hear the ball being played back and forth. Another version of reality has been created. Then, at the very end, Hemmings, standing all alone in the green grass of the park, suddenly disappears, removed by his director, Antonioni.