I find it easy to talk about films I don’t like, but very hard to write about them. When you take a film that is also critically lauded, seeming universally loved and canonized in the great pantheon of “Great Films”, it becomes even harder to talk about or write about, simply because I don’t want to look foolish. I don’t want to try and scale a critical mountain only for halfway through to suddenly see the light and realise what a colossal mistake I’ve made. But I’ve accepted that even if that happens, you have to at least try the mountain first. Whatever will be will be.

I didn’t like Blow-Up (1966, Dir. Michelangelo Antononi). I found it to not just be a film which failed to impress me, but a film I actively disliked and found dull as hell. There, I said it.

Maybe I have an agenda with this, conscious or unconscious. I mean I’m not gonna lie to you, the concerns of nihilistic, self-indulgent and grimy middle class artists is not exactly high on my list of priorities. I find it difficult to sympathise, or even empathise with the listless yet arrogant character David Hemmings portrays, a fashion photographer called Thomas.  On one hand I think its because I don’t have anything in common with this person, but a meaner darker voice inside of me says it’s because I only see the worst of myself in him. I could probably make a case for both, but more importantly characters are not the only cog in a film’s machine. Furthermore, there are plenty of characters who are out of my experiences who I could still empathise and sympathise with, aliens and murderers and ancient Romans and really characters from all walks of life, real and imagined.

I find its obfuscation and vagueness to be an irritant, it’s dream-like meandering provides no logical chain of events to follow, but it doesn’t provoke any delirious and irrational reactions in me from my unconscious, no response is generated from in me either rational or irrational. A series of events unfolded before me, but only indifference remained constant. Even as the films nature finally reveals itself at the end, as it shows its hand, I still remained unimpressed, or maybe just too tired after putting up with its idiosyncrasies. In its final scene, as it locks into place as a film which looks at the relation between a man and reality, musing on the strange nature of perception, it still fails to provoke anything other than irritation in me. It simply graduated from being a dull stoned murder mystery to being a dull stoned philosophical mystery.

On the other hand that is what the film is meant to be about. It’s a ennui injected film about a world which is ugly, which is alienating, which is bored with itself. And all the dynamism, all the desperation to find something of worth, is still glossed in a dream-like coat. But I don’t think my criticism is a misinterpretation, I don’t think I’m confused as to what was going on in the film, I at least was somewhere close to its intent. My issues seem to be with what it’s saying, if anything at all? It’s that kind of navel gazing which takes the world, models it as something boring but still feasts upon it, a film about ennui and alienation but still shows enough skin to at least unearth some of the more animalistic natures in us. It’s pulp-y in that sense, all mysterious beautiful women (with some whacked out gender politics) and murder plots. There’s nothing wrong with pulp, but pulp that pretends it’s something else just seems to be crass.

Did I dislike it because I felt it was pretentious? It was getting across the idea that it felt like it was far more important than it actually was? I mean after all,  the “Swinging Sixties” has become an era so iconic that it’s actually forgotten what it was really like, that most people’s lives weren’t filled with sexual and narcotic revolution, hanging out  and schmoozing with fancy London art scenesters. Maybe the fact it was made in the Sixties by someone who was involved in that scene (a filmmaker) grinds me even more. Everything about the film seems convinced of its own importance, its own unnecessary need to explain or justify any of its parts. Everything must be drawn from it, so much of it must be explained by either you trying to fit its pieces together or by a critic applying his own understanding of its mysteries. I don’t like films which need guides to be understood, that just signals to me an inability to use cinema’s tools properly.

But ambiguity is key to cinema! I don’t want everything explained to me, but Blow-Up pushes so much the other way that it leaves you almost in complete darkness, the vagueness and unfocused nature of its parts, it’s precise but shrouded cinematography, it’s scatty and complex score, its mysterious plot and bizarre, almost non-direction. It’s scenes which seem to possess no strong bridges between them, since it still possesses the mask of being in the real world. Perhaps the film landscape now has left me spoiled, in a world of David Lynch’s and Cronenberg’s, the surreal dreamlike qualities of Blow-Up have dulled in comparison.  After all, Blow-Up is a film about vibe, atmosphere, and atmosphere dates, goes out of style. I can’t deny that this would have been a breath of fresh air when it came out, even a revolution in cinema. But cinematic history and appreciation is not the same as cinematic preference.

Films can’t be everything to everyone, and no matter how universally acclaimed something will be, someone will always be there to disagree with you. Criticism is about constructing arguments, in favour or against things. As time goes on the majority opinion takes precedent, and the dissension is forgotten. And the longer time passes, the more the films take on a kind of “sacred” quality, an obvious and unquestioned mark of assurance that “you will appreciate it because it’s a classic“. That is not always the case, and you must never be afraid to attempt to tear down an idol if you feel like it should be. Someone will disagree with you anyway, at least this way you’ve got a better understanding of why you felt this way.

I’m glad Antononi made Blow-Up. I’m sure for many people this is even their favourite film (definitely for this guy). It’s still a radical break from cinematic convention, and it stakes its ground in unexplored territory. It may not work for me, but as a lover of cinema I can appreciate it for what it is. I just don’t have to like it.

I think I just don’t like the way Antononi looks at the world. And if that’s the case, how could I ever like this film?

-Alex

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