111 minutes of sheer boredom
Never have I watched a mystery thriller (...wait a minute! is this actually a mystery thriller? *checks the genre of the film once again* oh yes!...) so boring.
shareI weep for today's generation. This is a brilliant, thought-provoking movie exploring how our certainty of what is real or not is dependent on outside validation. In other words, we think we're the ones that decide with certainty whether something truly happened or didn't, but the opposite is the case. If we experienced something with our own eyes but there was no evidence to support it and no one to say, "Oh, I believe you," or "I saw what you did, too," over time we would begin to doubt ourselves and wonder if the thing we experienced really happened.
I rarely pull the "you didn't get it" card (I won't even do it for my favorite film, 2001: A Space Odyssey) but Blow Up is the one exception. You can complain about the movie being boring--that's fair, because it's a very slow-paced movie that takes place in real time. But complaining that it's pointless or meaningless or whatever, you just didn't get the movie. You didn't get that the whole point of the movie was to vicariously experience the frustration and confusion the photographer eventually feels as to whether the body was there or not.
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Emojis=💩 Emoticons=
Reading your critique tickled me, putting me in mind of Hitchcock's reaction to all the pseudo-intellectuals who read all kinds of things into his every frame; things that were never his intention. That's why I laughed through Leonard Leff's commentary on the Criterion DVD release of Rebecca; he assumes all kinds of things in Hitch's camera set-ups and movements, lighting and shadows that were never part of the director's vision.
Oh, Ingrid, it's only a movie!" ~ Alfred Hitchcock
Well, while I understand your meaning, I am not weeping for anyone. Some posters just don't get that everyone is definitely entitled to their own opinion. I have a problem with someone using such words as "always" or "never" when discussing films, or discussing just about anything. I have yet to encounter an absolute in life.
Anyway, this film does not revolve around a plot and therefore does not need the usual mystery or suspense features. The photographer is a character study - what will he do when confronted with certain situations. The central subject of the film, though, is photography itself. "Nearly half a century ago, in what he called his most autobiographical film, the renowned Italian director Antonioni came to the conclusion that reality through a lens is only ever a construct of the medium, that essential, we see what we want to see." Quoted from the below article:
http://www.americanphotomag.com/blow-up-Michelangelo-Antonioni-behind-most-famous-film-photography
The photographer's character kept me enthralled. Also there's symbolism throughout Blow Up; that's always interesting.
I understand that this film will not be appreciated by everyone. Many people want and expect action-driven films. As for myself, Michelangelo Antonioni is a director I had to learn about in order to really comprehend his films. I loved Blow Up the first time I watched it, but now that I know about Antonioni's style and what he is saying through his films I am able to truly enjoy and appreciate his films.
Many foreign films leave me completely puzzled at first. I will wonder what is so marvelous about a film I watch, especially after I read the message boards and see so many people posting accolades. Therefore I go onto the Internet and research the film, starting at Wikipedia and then going to university website collections, library collections, reviews, and other informative websites as well - whatever is out there.
I have had a world of cinema open up to me because of IMDb, knowledgeable posters having good debates (thanks for the civility), and further research. I believe films are an important source of information regarding our history of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Additionally, films are so much fun and can impact lives in positive ways.
"Wow. Our town has only had a Whole Foods for three weeks and we already have our first gay kids."
But complaining that it's pointless or meaningless or whatever, you just didn't get the movie. You didn't get that the whole point of the movie was to vicariously experience the frustration and confusion the photographer eventually feels as to whether the body was there or not.
That is a crock. First off, we *saw* the body when he went back to the park (yet he was so dumb he wouldn't bring his camera with him when he went back to the park and saw the body lying there???) so this film isn't giving me an "is the body really there or not?" dilemma it's GIVEN a body and a murder to me and from this point on, I want to see a PLOT advance. I was getting so bored out of my mind that I was scanning through all this meandering crap in the nightclub etc. (after previously feeling compelled to scan through the pointless menage-a-trois that brought things to a grinding halt) and shouting at the screen "GET TO THE POINT!" Hell, I would have settled for Hemmings being shot dead as the last scene in the film by the same gunman who has gone back to wait for him, but no, I get this meandering crap with the mimes and the tennis etc. and I'm supposed to "interpret" this? Calling this a great movie is elitist hogwash at its absolute worst, emblematic of critics with their upturned noses who look down on audience members who go to a movie and expect something as mundane as a PLOT. Instead this film represents directorial narcissism at its absolute worst (an honor that I previously reserved for Kubrick's overrated "2001") share
Agree. It's ironic that Hemmings, the photographer, would not have his camera available when he went back to the scene to check it out, directly - and finds the body there. He seemed to have his camera with, or nearby, at almost every other point in the picture - so why not when it would have counted the most, and would have made the most sense?
This film is one boring tail chaser. While films, I believe, should leave a degree of "interpretation" open to the viewer, a film such as this, "elitist hogwash", as you call it, seem solely concerned with turning the viewer into a psychoanalyst who is directed to search for motive, purpose and, not least, a coherent plot. Sorry, but I watch films to be entertained, not to be compelled to take up another "profession" in order to gain any pleasure or understanding from it. A most unentertaining, and even annoying film, at best.