The person that recommended this film to me told me that very little actually happens, and that its beauty comes from its ambiguity and the way it portrays swinging London. I didn't sit down anxiously awaiting a structured plot and narrative. In the event it turned out to be much more straightforward than I imagined. Some people might interpret it as an exploration of the questions - "what is real? how do we know if it is or isn't?". Yet it's certainly not the only, or most important interpretation to be had.
There's little point in rehashing the story, as plenty of other reviews here have already saved me the trouble. The thing that caught me about it was its sense of real-time. Blow Up's been called slow-moving, but in fact the events of the film don't happen over a matter of weeks. From what I can tell, they barely span 24 hours, give or take. The transition of thought and attitude and confidence that Thomas goes through in that small space of time is artfully handled, with no clumsy epiphanies or idiotic, unrealistic moments of revelation. You share the confusion that has crept up on him and seized him before he actually realises it - HIS confusion exactly, not the confusion of an uninvolved viewer watching an arty, labyrinthine film. Antonioni injects you, Alice-In-Wonderland-like, right into his head.
Thomas is from the start magnetic but brutal; someone you wouldn't expect pity or benevolence from; a man who is aware of his own power in the world, despises everything around him and acts kindly only if it's in his own interests to do so. By the end of the film, as an imaginary ball is tossed accidentally across a park by a ghostly teenage pack of mimes, the look on his face as he retrieves it for them suggests empathy; a sense of understanding that was lacking when we first met him. The events of the film are not explosive or loudly momentous; yet we understand that they are enough to change him, and by the end of the film we understand why. The sharp little shocks of distraction throughout - in particularly his encounter with the would-be models - are startling and realistic in their unconstructed spontaneity, as such experiences often really are. It's easy to see how Blow Up came from a short story; it has the elusiveness of one, and those who didn't appreciate it as a feature film might enjoy it more if perhaps they watched it again as a detailed anecdote rather than expecting a crashing epic.
There's little point in rehashing the story, as plenty of other reviews here have already saved me the trouble. The thing that caught me about it was its sense of real-time. Blow Up's been called slow-moving, but in fact the events of the film don't happen over a matter of weeks. From what I can tell, they barely span 24 hours, give or take. The transition of thought and attitude and confidence that Thomas goes through in that small space of time is artfully handled, with no clumsy epiphanies or idiotic, unrealistic moments of revelation. You share the confusion that has crept up on him and seized him before he actually realises it - HIS confusion exactly, not the confusion of an uninvolved viewer watching an arty, labyrinthine film. Antonioni injects you, Alice-In-Wonderland-like, right into his head.
Thomas is from the start magnetic but brutal; someone you wouldn't expect pity or benevolence from; a man who is aware of his own power in the world, despises everything around him and acts kindly only if it's in his own interests to do so. By the end of the film, as an imaginary ball is tossed accidentally across a park by a ghostly teenage pack of mimes, the look on his face as he retrieves it for them suggests empathy; a sense of understanding that was lacking when we first met him. The events of the film are not explosive or loudly momentous; yet we understand that they are enough to change him, and by the end of the film we understand why. The sharp little shocks of distraction throughout - in particularly his encounter with the would-be models - are startling and realistic in their unconstructed spontaneity, as such experiences often really are. It's easy to see how Blow Up came from a short story; it has the elusiveness of one, and those who didn't appreciate it as a feature film might enjoy it more if perhaps they watched it again as a detailed anecdote rather than expecting a crashing epic.