![]() Blow-up is less about the pieces to a puzzle and is more a character study on a soulless empty vessel who becomes spiritually awakened and aroused by his passion as a photographer. Did the photographer originally see a dead man? Whether there was a murder or not isn't necessarily the point that Antonioni is trying to make. When returning to his studio all of his photos have been stolen, and so when returning to the scene of the crime to confirm his suspicions, the body is now no longer there. Was the woman an accomplice or unknowing? The photographer returns to the park, and comes across a dead corpse lying on the ground. In the film's brilliantly edited centerpiece of extreme analyze and subtle sexual intrigue we watch the photographer make a shocking discovery that he may have photographed a murder. Then he blows up his photos, some of the pictures to poster size and pins the magnified photos around his studio living room. The photographer ultimately sends the woman away purposely with the wrong roll. When the woman notices him she desperately wants the film back, but the photographer refuses and the woman tracks him back to his studio trying to seduce the photographer to steal the film. Innocently and voyeuristically the photographer wanders into a deserted park and originally interprets a lover's rendezvous between a woman and a middle-aged man. We follow the photographer as he spends his days in tightly scheduled photo shoots with a lifeless, self-absorbed model (played by the real-life model Veruschka) and later photographs a vapid flock of other unsmiling, stationary women in stylized poses before rectangular backdrop screens. Antonioni creates a colorful, vapid and completely heartless world of fashion photography, swinging groupies, and ennui rock audiences and dope parties, with a narcissistic and reprehensible main protagonist with a Beatles haircut and a Rolls Royce convertible, who seems to have a deep-rooted contempt and cynical hatred for the female sex. When Blow-up was released in 1966 it was one of the highest-grossing art films to date, emerging as one of the many major films of the young independent film generation alongside such films like Bonnie and Clyde, Midnight Cowboy, Faces, Weekend, Five Easy Pieces, The Battle of Algiers and Easy Rider. Antonioni uses the formulaic materials for a traditional suspense thriller, without the climatic payoff. ![]() ![]() With Blow-up, Italian director Michelangelo Antonioni created one of the most fascinating and psychedelic art films, which tells the story of a desensitized and nihilistic London photographer who may have or not have witnessed a murder. ![]()
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