“Sometimes reality is the strangest fantasy of all,” a deep voice slowly says before the pitch-black screen explodes with a heavy guitar riff and a montage of scenes beautiful and bizarre in the original trailer for the 1966 film Blow-Up — the ultimate art house tale of sex, frocks, and rock & roll.
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We enter into a day in the life of Thomas (David Hemmings), a fashion photographer modeled on 1960s bad boys David Bailey, Terence Donovan and Brian Duffy. Produced by Carlo Ponti for MGM, Michelangelo Antonini’s first English language film deftly combines aestheticism and existentialism to flawless effect, giving us everything and nothing — much like the troop of mimes that bookend the film.
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We first encounter Thomas dipping out of a doss house at the break of dawn and hopping into his Rolls Royce Silver Cloud III Drop Head Coupé, offering the first of many stark contrasts between the artist and his subject. Though set in Swinging London, the city is eerily empty, quiet, and perfectly manicured — an unnerving sense of alienation at every turn.
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