Blow-Up

A fashion photographer uncovers murder in 60s London.

Blow-Up is great to look at. The colors, the costumes, the framing of the shots, it’s all technically brilliant. The way it captures 60s London is near-perfect, and every detail feels right.

The cast is excellent as well. Everyone falls into their part so well you often forget you’re watching actors.

But Blow-Up has a crucial flaw: It’s boring. Really boring. With very little dialog, Blow-Up relies on reaction shots and symbolism to move it’s narrative along, and these devices don’t work well enough visually to support a film by themselves. As a short story Blow-Up probably worked very well, as you could spell out each character’s thoughts, but here the audience has to guess them by the look on the character’s face.

When carload of mime hippies play tennis at the film’s finale, you enjoy it simply because it’s more interesting than anything that’s happened in the last half hour.