Top 100: Blow-Up (Michelangelo Antonioni, 1966)
"That'll teach you to fall in love with something on Saturday mornings!"
Dandyish fop photographer David Bailey, sorry, Thomas is a professional photographer in swinging 60s London (England). One fine morning, and quite by chance, he photographs a couple in a park. All quite innocent... or is it? Could it be that the loving innocence on display hides a darker truth? Could it? Or could it?
Part ingenious murder mystery, part pretentious celebration of all thing sixties in London, which was clearly the centre of the known galaxy at that time, Blow-up was Antonioni's first film in English, and includes a great cast... David Hemmings is perfect as the arrogant artist photographer Thomas, John Castle has a great cameo as his painter friend, and Vanessa Redgrave & Sarah Miles provide excellent supporting roles. Redgrave is particularly tremendous. Peter Bowles & a young Jane Birkin also have small roles.
Antonioni's films are notorious for their ambiguity, and Blow-up is no exception. The sparse, self-conscious dialogue can at times grate on the nerves, but the underlying mystery and swinging style of the film make the movie a very beautiful, satisfying experience. And then there's the music. Herbie Hancock's classic soundtrack appears throughout the film, and a cameo from the Yardbirds performing 'Stroll on' is very welcome... but that whole sequence does seem to be superfluous, and it looks like it was shot after the principal filming had ended. Is that a wig you're wearing, My Hemmings?
Blow-up is one of my favourite films of the 1960s, and is a very nice timepiece of that era. The typical Antonioni ending is highly pretentious, but what do expect from the man, really?
