Blow-up

A prize '60s artifact, Michelangelo Antonioni's what-is-truth? meditation on Swinging London is a movie to appreciate -- if not ponder.

In Blow-Up [Antonioni] smothers this conflict in the kind of pompous platitudes the press loves to designate as proper to "mature," "adult," "sober" art.

This is so ravishing to look at (the colors all seem newly minted) and pleasurable to follow (the enigmas are usually more teasing than worrying) that you're likely to excuse the metaphysical pretensions.

There may be some meaning, some commentary about life being a game, beyond what remains locked in the mind of film's creator, Italian director-writer Michelangelo Antonioni. But it is doubtful that the general public will get the 'message' of this film.

As often with Antonioni, a film riddled with moments of brilliance and scuppered by infuriating pretensions.

The natural world is arrayed against the artificial scene; conscience is deployed against convention. If you've never seen Blow-Up, see it now, if only to see what part of the world was like 40 years ago.

At once provocative and mystifying, dazzlingly immersive and utterly remarkable.

This remains a failure for which I would trade ten successes: a totally absorbing experience on the screen, a film of deceptive, tricky surfaces and cold perceptions.

Michelangelo Antonioni's first English language film is an allegorical murder mystery whose abstract parameters delineate a society where images are more important, and lasting, than reality.

Inspiring everyone from Francis Ford Coppola to Mike Myers, Michelangelo Antonioni's arty thriller remains an absorbing, eerie enigma.

Despite its thriller hook, Blow-Up is less a mystery than a portrait of swinging alienation.

Antonioni's first English-speaking film is a seminal work of the 1960s, reflecting swinging London as well as dealing with voyeurism, artists' social responsbilities and other relevant issues.