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 its 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 a 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.