what I think of Blowup

So I'm really struggling with this one. Antonioni, while a bore for many, captures my imagination every time. He always manages to eke just enough of a trace in each scene to keep me mesmerized by his long silences. His music choices always contrast against and enliven the meaning behind scenes, never churning into overwrought syrup. And the performances come chiseled of all excess. I also think his art of cutting film so that one has to refigure the character's place within the space with each new shot, while initially jarring, with time and practice reveals itself elegant and insightful: It forces the audience to almost unconsciously go about reconstructing the environments in their imagination. In particular, I am thinking of the emphasis he places on constructing a shot by shot layout of the path Thomas (the photographer) takes from the antique shop to park, or how we see just enough of Thomas' studio's bewildering layout to attempt to understand it. And this is only one of his clever ways of making his audience work just a little bit more, and that's what I love about him: little things like the extra time and thought taken to show Thomas' very consciously locking a camera in his glove compartment. Or how he lazily scoots across his vehicle's front seats. Or how he pours a glass of wine and then doesn't drink it. But most of all I love how Antonioni soothes my voyeuristic tendencies by revealing exclusive worlds of excess. Antonioni reminds me of fine wine more than any other filmmaker, and I like wine, and that's why it's hard for me to say that I don't think Blowup is a masterpiece. Cause I enjoy the Hell out of just about every moment of this film, but that's probably just because it's my kind of candy: A story about a man living out a whimsical lifestyle in which he is surrounded by beautiful women and people who take his art seriously wherever he goes: My kind of paradise. So you see, Antonioni and I get along.

But is this a character study or an idea film? Either or, or both, it fails. The film's last sequence reveals the emptiness lying behind Thomas' life. Nothing is essential to this character, and so when something seemingly REALLY important happens to him (the possible murder in the park), he dithers around until the moment for decisive action disperses. So the film's crux or crucial idea rests on revealing Thomas' life to be empty. Since it's Thomas' life we have been watching for the past hour and a half, we now can successfully realize that every frame of the film is basically meaningless. And if you go back and watch it, trying to find some kind of meaning, the only one you'll come away with is the essential meaninglessness of everything Thomas does, as well as all Antonioni films. There's nothing to him/it. The settings, and the actions taking place in them, aren't symbolic, they're glitzy, pretty, fun, random, entertaining, and that's how Antonioni wanted it, because his film is supposed to be meaningless. Both Thomas and Antonioni just kinda play around for while. The cadaver in the park could be a little meaningful, but really it's just kinda creepy. The cadaver has no resonance on Thomas' life. The whole plot device, the murder outside the frames, reveals itself to be just that, a plot device. In no way does this encounter with death impinge consequences on Thomas' life or symbolism throughout the film. If this death is supposed to be symbolic, it fails because it's presence is not felt beyond those frames capturing it directly: there's no death tinge to be found while we watch Thomas bully models. The film's crucial idea rest not on death, but on life's inherent meaninglessness. Some will say this insight is profound, and while I agree up to a point, I find the insight falsely rendered within the film. Neither the film nor the character ever comes down from the clouds, and that is false. Finding meaninglessness in life is a meaning all it's own, both Antonioni and I agree on this, but this meaning of meaninglessness, or this meaningless kind of meaningfullness, enacts a toll on each one of us, and this is what Antonioni fails to express. Life ain't no piece of cake, and great art will never be either. Blowup fails to express meaninglessness as we find it in life.

My rating: 8