Film Review (Int'l): Blow Up (1966)

Inviting sprawls of lush greens, quirky British lanes, crisp colors, glossy prints, surreal light, a vintage open-top Rolls, a sensual wood propellor, the stillness of image accelerated by simply the sound of wind through blades of grass, the lead actor framed tightly by two blow-ups of photographs shot by him, a young Vanessa Redgrave - all of these and more wrapped into one of the most pristine visual exhibitions built around a plot that otherwise questions everything but beauty itself.

My first Michelangelo Antonioni film! (Red Desert will be next.) Blow Up(1966) is one of his much acclaimed classics. The man has made films for over 60 years now - and another generation of film lovers is just about waking up to his films. When it comes to the legendary directors, I prefer to let ignorance be bliss and will restrict my comments on just the film.

Adapted from a Julio Cortazar story, Blow Up is more compelling as a visual spectacle than as a hard story line. It feels like a series of portraits on a clearly frustrated creative genius and his existence. In a little over a day in this photographer's life (played by a young intense David Hemmings), we are witness to the zeitgeist of the 60's - design, fashion, installation, space, depth, color, nature, freedom and beauty. Hemmings plays the part convincingly and his seems a quest to filter out everything around himself but beauty.

The story begins with a bunch of noisy travelling performers and one wonders about their intrusion in the film until we're reintroduced to a different perspective on them in the closing sequence. The protagonist is spending a 'typical day in his life' and captures evidence of a murder while seemingly shooting innocent snapshots of an affectionate couple in the park. He takes the film roll home, and is pursued by the woman in the pictures - a version of Ms.Redgrave that few of us in this generation would have seen - who wants the roll to be destroyed, for reasons obvious to her at that point. The director explores the nervous moments of intimacy between this pair with a subtlety that leaves you sighing. Hemmings fakes the surrender of the film roll to the woman and then proceeds to BLOW UP the photos to study the dynamics of the couple. Along with the photographer, the viewer traverses the mysterious build-up through each iteration of the Blow Ups and it leads to many revelations - a body on the distant grass, a camouflaged human form and some hints of a devious plot. Hemmings is shown to have suddenly found purpose as he sets out to solve this mystery. We take the thrill ride, only to be led to an anti-climax and the refuge of sensing that one is not alone in having the odd day spent in searching for answers.

In the pursuit of beauty, every other seems listless. In the pursuit of answers, every question assumes more importance. In the pursuit of good film, Antonioni has stayed true to the art form.