“Sometimes reality is the strangest fantasy of all”
Finding it hard to express how great Blow up is. Wow. ‘Thomas’ (David Hemmings also of Profundo Rosso) is a young very successful very confident photographer with a short attention span, who photographs an event he later finds out wasn’t the story he assumed. Prepare to be whisked upon a ride through heavy eye-lashed, rocking, drugged up 60s London, and breathlessly confronted with the difference between the eye of a camera and actuality.
I’d be here all night going through the ways this film goes hard, but one of the important things that stands out is mood, and if you’re inclined, genre, which flows and changes from thrilling to playful to dramatic. Blow up is an example of the brilliant potential of magical realism, where metaphor clashes with reality in unexpected ways, the use of this device explains how mood can fluctuate like it does, because it tells us where the epicentre of the story is: the mind of the main character.
Unlike a conventional Thriller, Thomas isn’t forced into an alien situation which could dictate the mood, and unlike a detective thriller, he isn’t all that interested in justice or revenge. There is a unique motive behind what the character does but I won’t get into that (too long too rambly). Thomas’ story takes place over about 48 hours continuously, and across that, his attention flits to and away from the primary problem he encounters and in turn, mood/genre fluctuates from Thriller to Drama. Spontaneous, controlling and above all, horny as fuck, he’s distracted by and attracted to objects. Because of this a fantastic contrast is created between objects, and with a more profound sense of loss towards the end.
A comparison I keep thinking of is The Bicycle Thieves (1948), an example of a linear story with a tragic ending. A modern example could come from the Safdie brothers, but there are still stark differences here aside from the obvious visual ones.
It’s all brilliant, the editing, writing, a lack of super in-your-face score, the hugely creative shot composition, the transforming, interactive set. I wouldn’t want to be mates with the protagonist, he is a shithead for more reasons than Director Antonioni intended. (Read light sexual assault). There is an inseparable chauvinistic context to Blow Up, the female characters are built to be controlled and rebel off-screen. But without exonerating I also want you to see that chauvinism is built into the flaws of the main character, and that as well as having its shithead moments, a huge amount of thought is stuffed into the development and pay-off of the themes and ideas in the story.
Watch it for yourself if this is on your list of films to watch – give it a good boost up the ranks.
I might come back to this with more thoughts, for now it’s a strong 8 maybe a light 9/10, I wasn’t moved to tears, or to any other emotional extremes but that ain’t everything.
ideaskip 