Blow Up (1966)

Anyone wishing to drill down through the layers of time for a peek at Swinging Sixties London will love this finely crafted biopic. David Hemmings is a successful professional photographer zooming manically from undercover photo ops to studio fashion shoots in his Roller convertible. When bored, which is pretty much all the time for this jaded warrior of the drugs, sex and rock ‘n roll culture, he seeks thrills in clubs, casual sexual encounters and random photo expeditions around London.

During one such outing he inadvertently captures what may have been the moment a man was murdered during a romantic encounter with a younger woman in a park. His suspicions are aroused when the lady (a young, willowy and sensual Vanessa Redgrave) follows him back to his studio and is willing to trade sex for the film he has just shot in the park.

Besides conjuring up a rather good Hitchcock style thriller, Michelangelo Antonioni also poses The Big Questions which so consumed us in the sixties: the big existential issues and fretting about the nature of Reality. Great time capsule movie.

The Duke of York’s Cinema, 14 May 2012

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