The film is extremely well cast. David Hemmings is brilliantly cast in the role of a free-lance photographer and swinging Londoner about town. He's the right age, he's got the right look, and he's so believable in his role as to make it almost impossible to tell where the actor's true identity ends and the character acting begins. Yet he's totally believable in this role, he's good-looking, but also unique looking enough as to seem like a "real" person in a "real" environment living "real" scenarios.

I will give big points to a genuine effort to make a unique film here. This is definately not one of your typical "formula films" of today! It did manage to hold my interest throughout, although I'm still not entirely sure what this film is about, and I have a hunch that some of it is another example of "The Emporer's New Clothes", which is why I can only give this movie 4 stars.

This film was highly influential in it's day and I do recommend it to any fan of 60's culture and art films in general; especially for a rare chance to see both Jimmy Page and Jeff Beck performing together in this short-lived lineup of the Yardbirds.

This film is usually considered Michelangelo Antonioni's best film, although I disagree. I feel that "L'Avventura" is his masterpiece. But I must ask - why is this film not available in a DVD version yet? I can't believe that. C'mon Criterion - get on it!


Very stylistic and avant-garde, but still makes sense. Great   October 15, 1999
 25 out of 28 found this review helpful

Michelangelo Antonioni's 1966 film adaptation of Julio Cortazar's "Blow-Up," perhaps Antonioni's best known work, represents a truly great adaptation of a short story, though the film on its own still stands as a great artistic acheivement. It is a remarkable example of an international work (an Italian director working with a British cast), a project which can easily go awry. David Hemings and Vanessa Redgrave both give excellent performances, but most important, it is a highly stylized somewhat avant-garde work, but in the end, the story has direct meaning and still makes perfectly clear sense- a true rarity. "Blow-Up's" value as a literary adaptation is only one virtue the film possesses, but this virtue includes several positive aspects. "Blow-Up" centers around a photographer named Robert, who, while walkng through the park one afternoon, photographs two lovers from a distance. The woman furiously demands that Robert hand over the negatives. Instead, he returns to hs studio to develop them. After studyng the photographs carefully, Robert discovers that the woman, working with a third firgure situated behind the hedge, is murdering the young man. As he studies the photos, Robert is watching an actual murder take place, but he is powerless to stop it, because it is only taking place in the photographs. Here, the line separating reality and imagination has become completely blurred. As events unfold, the photographer comes to realize that the entire sequence may have only taken place in his head. The recurring theme of both the short story and the film is that people ultimately construct their own reality. Cortazar helped establsh this theme from the beginning by writing his story alternately in first person and in third person, sometimes in singular, sometimes in plural, the implication being that the narrator himself isn't even certain whether or not any of this actually took place. In his film adaptation, Antonioni took what was represented as a few short scenes in the short story, and integrated his own material, bringing the film to a reasonable running time. The impressive part of this is that the integrated material, while completely fabricated by the filmmaker, still manages to make itself relevant by being in compliance with the story's main theme. The mime troupe is the most interesting of these additions. They appear in the beginning, their only apparent purpose to create havoc in the city. Though in the end, it is the mime troupe who make the film's theme most apparent. While playing a mock game of tennis, the mimes knock the "ball" out of the court. Robert goes to retrieve it for them. He bends over, picks up an imaginary ball, and throws it back on the court. The camera stays on Robert as he watches them play, and slowly, we begin to hear the sound of a tennis ball being bounced back and forth. Once again, Robert has immersed himself in the reality of his imagination, so to speak. Antonioni, an absolute master of sound control, pulls this effect off as no other director could have. The short story's theme of imagination and reality could so easily have been lost on film, since film is by its nature a third person limited storytelling medium. Antonioni's uses of sound, as in all of his movies, is truly astounding, and he uses this medium very effectively to enter Robert's personal reality. This is perhaps the greatest genius of the film adaptation.