ElMaruecan82 I'm going to quote Mr. Burns from "The Simpsons": "I'm no art critic, but I know what I hate. And... I don't hate this."No, I can't say that I hated, even disliked, Michelangelo Antonioni's "Blow-Up", Golden Palm winner of 1966, the film kept my interest from beginning to end and the deliberately dissatisfying ending had an interesting quality about itself. I know it left more interrogation marks at the end than at the start but this is an art film, what did anyone expect? A resolution? What kind of answers to the photography mystery could have been satisfying? The film had more to say about the form of things to let us free to put any content we want, I don't mean it's an art film as an alibi, but as a choice of style that didn't make it less enjoyable, certainly bizarre and disconcerting but I guess it's a freelance movie that tried not to be too dependent on narrative structure, no rules was the rule.I feel like I'm overusing this word 'art', and I don't know what it means either in that context, I think it's less an art film by the way it tried to be different but because what it seems to imply is that nothing is precisely what it seems it and the more you try to enlarge a vision of the truth or to dig deeper into it, the less clear it actually becomes, in fact, it is quite impossible to get it. It is just like impressionism, take a Claude Monet painting and get your eyes closer, if you try to look at a person's eyes, trying to figure out something about a personality, you will only see little colored dots. The same goes with "Blow-up", let's just look at the big picture.This is a film about a photographer who loves his job and that's a certainty. He's played by David Hummings, a then-unknown actor (although mostly known today for this role) and here's someone who's so serious about his job that he exudes genuine fear even among professionals, while young starlets accept to be treated like poultry, the older ones never react to his sarcasms of derogatory comments either. His misogyny might date the film even more than the groovy music or the clothes but it's a necessary evil. The opening scene with real-life mannequin Verushka, one of the most famous scenes of history, plays exactly like sex scene with slow escalation and a climax that finally leads to the guy just leaving the stage without any word. Talk about a preliminary! Many things happen before the crucial park scene which retrospectively doesn't add much to the plot except to get us in a mood of intellectual turmoil where the youth was intellectually disillusioned and morally misshaped. These kids had their parents dealing with war, the Blitz but they don't have much to endure in their youth, they can only embrace the relative comfort of their lives or seek for escape and enjoyment in a way or another. Whether demonstrations, rock concerts or pot-smoking, the film features many generation-defining moments that were emblematic of the baby-boom generation, what does that bring to the film? Nothing, except,maybe the essential, to bring a certain mood, a texture, an atmosphere that looks typical on a first glance but then is slowly deconstructed.It is also interesting that the hero is a photographer, this means he can explore all the different layers of societies and capture their seemingly essence in one shot, someone who's an observer, but of an active nature, which makes him a sort of embodiment of youth, a need to be active but without much things to do, an impression of activity rather than a real one. When he finds himself in the park, he's put in total neutral area, natural on the surface, it's all in green, but it's still a place occupied by people. He finds two lovers, are they fighting? Flirting? He takes a few shots, he's approached by the woman (Vanessa Redgrave) who wants the pictures back, that naturally arouses his curiosity, forbidding is forbidden, as they said in France, in 1968.The film keeps on some suspense, he meets the woman, they have a little flirting session, they smoke pot, she seduces him, he gives her the reel, she gives him a phone number, both are wrong, but never mind, he's got the pictures and then in one of the most fascinating movie moments, he enlarges them one by one, suspecting something wrong, what he thought was the object of his eyes, become the subjects of something more interesting involving a gun, a corpse. Blowing up again the images, he finds the pictures and he is just overwhelmed, he tries to find out what is going on, and just when you think this is going to be something à la Columbo, the film totally derails from its premise while happening to say more interesting things.I won't develop it further (no pun intended) because I feel like providing alibis for something that didn't make sense because it's not your typical 'art' film that circles around nothing, this one has the seemingly premise of a plot and has the guts to throw it away as if it had maybe some more important statements to say. The result is quite astonishing, it is like a slice of life of the groovy 60's, a document about the superficiality of the time, a quest for bizarre meaningfulness and a film that revolutionized the treatment of nudity, sexuality and maybe violence. In a way, it's for pioneering movies like that cinema could have a few groundbreaking movies in the year after.So… what else to say? "Blow-up" didn't have much meaning except that some things in life don't have a proper meaning as well, and maybe, that's meaningful enough.

James De Bello Hitchock on Michelangelo Antonioni and Federico Fellini: "Those Italian fellows are a hundred years ahead of us. 'Blow-Up' and '8½' are bloody masterpieces".There probably isn't a better way to describe what "Blow-Up" represents. It is film that is so ahead of its time, it remains, now in 2016, something that could still be viewed ahead of us. The timelessness that Antonioni achieves in his directing is sure to make any viewer's mouth drop in awe and when you will reach the end of it, there probably will not be a time where the exclamation "What the hell did I just see?!" could be more suiting.That is probably why reviewing such a film is so difficult. Its surrealism is so shocking and encompassing you are left without words. "Blow-Up" makes you feel and experience, it has a baffling sensuality, there's not much space left for your brain to think too much.This is one of the film that reminds you what directing can be, what it can achieve, but especially, what it consists of. The shots are all so fittingly perfect and complex, this is probably one of the best examples of visual storytelling in the history of cinema. The dialogue barely exists in the film and it is always really disconnected, yet you won't realize this until you think back at it. That is because the cinematography and the editing of the film work together so flawless and ingeniously, you won't think of a void to fill, you will just look at this and constantly feel something happening, the story forwarding, the characters developing.I cannot stress enough how clever the staging is. This is really one of the films that should be studied to become a filmmaker. There is absolutely everything. Actors' blocking, camera movement, editing, story beats, you name it, you will learn it from here. That is why Anotnioni manages to keep your attention spam constantly up, even when a scene on paper would not communicate anything to the viewer, he comes in and stages scenes that could be watched on repeat forever. There's such a rhythm to his editing you cannot possibly take your eyes off screen no matter what's on it.Moreover the way in which every actor, from David Hemmings to the smallest extra, plays the role to perfection is another representation of Antonioni's masterful directing. Of course a lot of the merit has to go to the casting and the actors themselves, yet to me, what it proves the most is how incredibly confident and versed the director is in his vision. He knows exactly what every scene must do to the audience, what and how much information it must convey and he manages to get everything of it, to the the point that there's not a single beat in the film that feels out of place. He manages to give us the only what is strictly necessary to build tension and leaves the rest in a gray area. The effect is a film that constantly feels like it is about to explode, but moment after moment keeps building to the point that if there is one fault it can have is not giving the pay off you wish. Yet that is still disputable since the very fact that there is no pay off is the whole thematic core the film is exploring.It is so mysterious and cryptic there is literally an infinity of interpretations anyone could give that could all be right in their own way. This is an incredibly difficult balance to strike in a film without being annoying and "Blow-Up" does it perfectly. Still, I must say that in these cases movies end up either making your brain explode in curiosity and thirst of knowledge or they leave you slightly wordless and confused. In the case of this one, for me it would be the latter even though it is still quite enjoyable to be left so, I must admit it reaches a level of indecipherability at times that left me scratching my head. Yet, I really look forward to trying and revisit that and break it because whilst some of those moments might have left me puzzled, I cannot ever define myself to have been underwhelmed or bored, on the contrary, I was always thrilled and eager to watch what was going to happen next.Still, the best part has yet to come: this film was made in 1966. To even think that makes my head ache. The surrealism and sensuality, which are without a doubt and almost bluntly the fathers of Sorrentino's cinema today, are so crazily original it is disarming to think someone actually did this such a long time ago since it still feels new and fresh today. That really speaks to the power of the cut and the frame used by Antonioni. Whilst watching it I repeatedly thought that almost every shot in the film could be hung to the wall.I cannot recommend this film enough to any movie fan. No matter if you've never seen older movies or if you think you have seen them all, "Blow-Up" will floor you either way and even better, it will teach you something about filmaking.

punishmentpark It's always a good sign when time passes by all too quickly when watching a film, as did happen with 'Blowup'. Somewhat shamefully I must admit that this is the first Michelangelo Antonioni film that I ever saw, even if I had intended to watch 'Il deserto rosso' first, since that film had been a big inspiration for John Boorman's excellent 'Point blank', but alas.I had seen (part of) the final scene once before in a movie contest, and (/so) I had actually expected it to be in the first part of the film. Alas somewhat, again, but Antonioni (and David Hemmings and loads of pretty - ahem - birds) pretty quickly enthralled me with an almost non-stop crazy but beautiful ride through a modern London in the sixties, with all sorts of extravagant and also more understated escapades. Almost, because there were some moments eluding me with their ambiguity. And the scene in the club had really poor lighting, in my opinion (though it did enable the viewer spot pretty much every detail).These minor low-points might prove to be more in place and comprehensible when I watch this one again - which should be pretty soon, I'm convinced. I might edit this review later for that reason, and up my rating as well.For now... at least a very big 8 out of 10.

Pookie Mahdis I read the Mad Magazine parody called "Throwup"which was probably back in 1967. Yesterday I finally saw the movie, less than 50 years later. All I recall from the parody were the black circles under the protagonist's eyes. I see value in this movie from a historical perspective as it shows what people were impressed with back then. Twiggy was a popular model and was called that name because she set a new standard of what models should look like (twigs). Two weeks ago, I watched Marilyn Monroe in Niagara and felt that I learnt more about a view of the times that I did from watching Blowup. I think what I gained by watching Blowup, I could have obtained by watching a 10 minute clip. I have not seen Ben Hur as an example of a movie that should be higher on my list than Blowup.