Blow Up

Blow Up is a movie that I have often heard referenced in relation to other movie’s I love, most notably Deep Red. I went in not knowing what to expect other than that it involves David Hemmings photographing what he thinks was a murder. The title is a reference to a long scene in which he enlarges the photos to see the details (parodied so well in Mel Brooks’s High Anxiety). My expectation was that this was going to be an intense thriller. I was wrong. The film is more of an art film about perception: can we always believe what we see? I would have preferred a thriller, but as it is, the film makes its point well in its rather heavy-handed use of anarchist mimes(!). Aside from highbrow intentions, the real reason to see this film is the Mod-era fashion, art, music and locales. There are tons of wonderfully memorable moments that seemingly have nothing to do with the plot such as Verushka’s photo shoot or the Yardbirds playing for an apathetic crowd of mods.