Irreversible?

Irreversible
Directed by: Gaspar Noe
Written by: Gaspar Noe
Copyright: 2000
Released by Studio Canal
Cast: Vincent Cassel, Monica Bellucci, Albert Dupontel

I have been familiar with Irreversible (2000) since it created a stir when it was experimentally shown at the Cannes Film Festival four years ago. The audience walk-out at the start of the movie practically carved its notoriety to a degree that it wasn’t publicly released to theatres worldwide. Admittedly I was only after Monica Bellucci and the rumored violent rape scene that spanned (or so I heard) ten to fifteen minutes. Anyway, my boss lent me the DVD and tried to watch it over the evening. Even so, it somehow convinced me of the fact it is, indeed a movie not for the weak tummy. I could only sympathize with the people who were thoroughly assured of their stance when they decided to leave their seats, thus as a result achieved the type of reaction Gaspar Noe presumably anticipated.

Interestingly shallow but craftily post-produced, Noe’s austere camera work leaves the audience on a tightrope towards achieving perfect equilibrium and creating a straightforward plotflow. Irreversible is essentially a simple film: Marcus (Vincent Cassel) on the hunt for his girlfriend Alexandra’s (Monica Bellucci) rapist. He enlists the help of Alexs’s ex-husband Pierre (Albert Dupontel) on his search. From that premise, Gaspar Noe leaves the audience to weave the entirety of the story and in doing so add a cornucopia of creative (however extremely erratic) camera shots.

Technically, Irreversible is a film editor’s nightmare. Of course, we can all agree on such description. Noe’s idea of a reverse sequence is not entirely new to filmmaking. Christopher Nolan’s Memento (1999) as well as the modified reverse sequencing of Quentin Tarantino in Pulp Fiction (1995) introduced the audience to such diverse technique. Always there is a downside or a lowdown to the incorporation of this trend. It obliterates the conventionality of straightforward narration (which is the basic and simplest form of film viewing we all grew accustomed to), and most significantly it adds a weight of confusion to the development of the movie’s plot. Unlike in Memento where the story (the backward amnesia syndrome or something like that) somehow justifies the use of such method, Noe probably decided to incorporate this basically out of pretention-and perhaps to conceal the plot’s superficiality. With that, sealed the fate of the film. Tarantino in part, experimented with such style but as opposite to the audience’s reception of Irreversible, partially succeeded.

Irreversible opens with a twisting (or revolving, whatever) shot of the opening credits, followed by two naked septuagenarians absorbed in profound philosophical talk. Whatever Noe is trying to say with this sequence is completely irrelevant to the film (to my perspective, I guess). Abruptly, it cuts to a scene wherein Marcus is being escorted out from a bar in a stretcher. From hereon, the film traverses through an erratic weaving of dizzying shots. Complementing this, I believe is a stream of impromptu dialogue as if Noe made the film without any script (except, of course, the treatment) to guide him.

I watched Irreversible anticipating whether it could drive me to the same empathies the people at Cannes felt that pushed them to leave the theatre. It didn’t, but somehow led to me cringe at the very sight of Monica Bellucci being violated at the middle of the film (and it confirmed the fact that the rape scene indeed dragged ten minutes). Seriously, the film is a study of extreme violence, of Noe’s intrinsic perversions, and ultimately the appropriate channel of his fantasies.

The eroticism most people expect of Irreversible is naturally absent, except of course, to those people who finds rape to be gratifying, but I think this is presumably an understatement to Gaspar Noe’s reason to write a screenplay that discussed such debauchery. Unlike Paul Verhoeven, whose sexual preoccupations (and perhaps, his fondness for rape scenes evidently illustrated in his films Keetje Tippel, Spetters, Showgirls [1993] and recently Hollow Man [2000]) somehow demonstrated this with a fragment of arty sheen, although much resulted either in critical bashing of the film, or a triumph in erotic depiction.

Irreversible’s theme is not entirely new to the genre. Rape-revenge films trace back to most seventies B-movie gory-fests that include notable titles like I Spit on Your Grave (1971), The Last House on the Left (1975); and carried through the 80s and the 90s with the French soft-porn Baise Moi (1999). While Irreversible turns out a little tame than the aforementioned movies, it does not fail to escape the idea of sex as both an instrument of perversity and commonplace violence. Wholly, the film revolves on the fantasy side of social delinquency-the event of rape in a public subway clearly defines the laxity of the French police system while at the same time questions the reality of such an attack: who would dare attempt to assault a person in a well-lit public walkway without being noticed by a passer-by? At any point, a person with the right mind would somehow avoid passing through a deserted subway even if circumstances dictate (I could attest to this statement though).

There is little that Gaspar Noe has to prove from this film, likewise it `typed’ him as a director who harbors a penchance for unnecessary violence and the downright disturbing. In the two films he directed (I Stand Alone [1998], and Irreversible), Noe’s unsavory reputation could possibly earn him a cult following and canonical distinction.

Etchie Piñgol
March 15, 2004
Office of Student Affairs
University of the Philippines Manila

picking up samuel fuller

Whatever the reason, I manage to see Samuel Fuller's Pickup on South Street (1953) three times---more than anything I've seen of an Alfred Hitchcock film (well, I saw Psycho four times, not because I wanted to, but more of an academic demand). Probably because the Criterion DVD costs that much that repeated viewings are required to compensate for the twenty-five bucks I had to shed for it. No. I don't think so. I liked the film. I liked the taste of noir that Fuller delicately topped it. Bitter. Sweet. Dark. Like chocolate. A repetition is acquiring its flavor once again.

The movie begins in an unconventional way. A wordless subway sequence, no dialogues just the mechanical reverberation of the subway train--packed with the usual rush hour pedestrian traffic. We see the pouty-lipped Jean Peters in a vacant stare, unknowingly being watched by two men who appears (and we digress) to be either a cop or a mob man. In anyway, Fuller wouldn't let us know, until, of course as the film develops. In, comes Richard Widmark, ever cool, but beneath such coolness is his cunning ability to pick pockets. Grifting, as Fuller had come to term it, perhaps more of personal need to survive than a bending of social norms. Skip McCoy does what we expect him to do: grift. Yes, he did it. Now, we are audiences to what will transpire in the next hour.

The Double Complications
Candy doesn't know what she is carrying and Skip also carries no idea of what he grifted. His struggle to survive is his main concern. Whatever the purse contains, whether significant or not, it's none of his business. He exists in the simplicity of the film, its complications are the factors that will preclude Skip from living in that perspective. He has nothing to ruminate, except to avoid being apprehended. He sure has nothing to lose. However, everything changes the moment Skip filches Candy's purse. So, what are the two complications that arises from Skip's action? (1) both Skip and Candy's naivette--and the emergence of the microfilm contends to that; (2) the question of patriotism (rebuffing the federal agent's threat of treason with "are you waving the flag at me?") or a statement of survival (Thelma Ritter's Moe saying "we all have to eat").

The McGuffin
Alfred Hitchcock defined the McGuffin as something that contributes to the build-up of suspense. It could be a certain object that both the protagonist and the antagonists wanted, or perhaps a verbal information/secret that one has to utter and send the entire story in a zigzag course. Whatever it is, it has the capacity to turn things around, gives the film an interesting premise or, reveals a particular character's color. In Pickup, the McGuffin is the microfilm that Skip unknowingly pilfered from Candy's purse. It turns out to be an important piece of formula that the communists wanted. As it also turns out, both Skip and Candy becomes the McGuffin, personified, because they both have what the `villains' in the film wanted--the microfilm and themselves.

The Wrecking Crew
Fuller vehemently denied the anti-communist sentiments Pickup on South Street evidently expressed, but it seems during that time, it could be the appropriate film to simmer under his oven. Richard Kiley supported the cast as the quiet antagonist, Candy's manipulating paramour, a devious traitor who happens to be the one who will sell the microfilm to the communists. Furthermore, he assumes Candy's absolute loyalty to him, assuring her that after this delivery, there will be no more to follow. On the other hand, on Skip's opposite side of the battle is Detective Dan Tiger (played by Murvyn Pye), seeking to put the grifter away for life, but at the same time secretly hoping of his cooperation. He is the accidental hero, in a way, cloaked as the mean head of the pickpockets division of the Force.

The Stoolie
Thelma Ritter, was, as Fuller had described in his autobiography, the first person he casted in the film. She plays Moe, an informant (though she never uses such term to describe her willingness to help), a stoolie who sells tie and information in order to buy herself a decent cemetery plot. Her ultimate dream, perhaps, that she utters "If I was to be buried in Potter's Field, it'd just about kill me". She harbors deep respect and love for Skip, "I've known you since you were a kid", and would never have given him away. Survival is her game, though for one thing is a battle already half-lost.

In the large spectrum of the American film noir industry, Pickup on South Street is a definitive example. It defies the standards of the 50s censorship with its both near unpatriotism and extreme violence (I suggest to look out for the staircase scene), that for whatever reason I really enjoyed it.

Frantic and Tantric

HANA-BI (english title: Fireworks)
Written and Directed by: Takeshi Kitano
Copyright 1997
Released by: The Kitano Office and Bandai Pictures
Cast: Beat Takeshi

It started back after I read a mildly critical (yet, concised) review of Takeshi Kitano’s opus (or whatever they want to call it, I don’t care) Hana-bi (Fireworks) in a thread in Pinoydvd.com. The reviewer, in someway, managed to rate it four stars (five being his highest and possibly indicating a masterpiece), practically saying that it was Takeshi Kitano’s best work to date. I haven’t seen any of his movies when I read the review, so I guess comparison is not what in my mind at that moment. It basically made me believe that it equalled anything good in the Japanese cinema-from Akira Kurosawa to Kiyoshi Kurosawa to Takashi Miike or Yasujiro Ozu. When the Japanese Embassy through its Japan Cultural Foundation held its second Eiga Sai this year (the first was Kiyoshi Kurosawa last March-I saw Kyua during that festival) and featured six films of Takeshi Kitano in a month-long film festival at SM Megamall, UP Film Center and the Cultural Center of the Philippines, I did not hesitate to go. Besides, it’s free.

Anyway, Hana-bi’s simple plot is nevertheless simple. The only factor that contributes to its complexity is perhaps, Takeshi Kitano’s uncharacteristic method of filmmaking. From there, the film begins to transcend to a different genre and possibly reclines towards a certain distinction. The film is about a corrupt cop who robs a bank in order to pay for his debt to the Yakuza and at the same time come to grips with the reality of his wife’s incurable malady. He settles his dues and takes off to a vacation with his wife pursued by the Yakuza (who are unbelievably clever in where to track him down) and his police colleagues (who, in this case are noticeably dumb).

Hana-bi is not an easy film to watch, at least not at all watchable. It has a unique feel of allowing you to fall in its stuporous trap and eventually drag you towards manifesting a blank realization. It pushes the audience (in this manner, me and my friends who saw it) into a violent semi-consciousness, influenced by both Kitano’s fondness for unnecessary bloodbath and the `comatose-al’ effect he incorporates in the film. I will be having difficulty in explaining my definition of such experience for I’m still struggling to find myself in the rubbles of the movie’s incoherence and likewise, a personal premeditated miscomprehension. Nonetheless, I left the theatre reeling from the aftereffects of Hana-bi, shaken but not stirred (many thanks to Ian Fleming, though), a heavy cloud forming within my head. Yup, the film is similar to a dose of Tramadol or any sedative, it leaves you gasping to search for your thoughts amidst an immediate bout of temporary inability to think.

The principal factor that makes Hana-bi a distinct production is probably Kitano’s style of perpetual shots on a certain background-be it necessary/significant or unnecessary/insignificant to the development of the story. He permits the profound silence to speak for itself, meanwhile letting the audience to arrive at the point where they begin to get naturally bored or extremely close to hallucination. While this film-induced hypnosis gradually develops, it is broken by fragments of violence-and ironically, a satisfying but questionable downbeat ending will again, contribute to a recurrence of such expression. I carry plenty of questions that Kitano bequeathed me as the end credits rolled, however your thoughts are dissipated as you left your seat. It did occur to me somehow that Hana-bi diverts itself from the middlebrow Japanese cinema-a direction many of the contemporary Jap directors (Hirokazu Kore-eda, Kiyoshi Kurosawa) are currently traversing. Kitano (while we will often remember as the `king’ of the tv game show’s obstacle-ridden kingdom), prolifically makes this entrancing, yet twisted melodrama a dizzying pace to the straightforward but rapid rambling of a number of films dealing with gangsters and Yakuza.

Although a lot of people might disagree with my perception that Hana-bi deserves bagging honors in an abundance of international film festivals (Venice International Film Fest; Berlin Film Fest, etc.), initially I was also caught in the intricate and deeply philosophical or rather somnolent quality of Hana-bi, but as what I have surmised, the film hits you hours or days after you’ve seen it. It sends the viewer into the whirlpool of metaphors and perhaps, those superfluous scenes which to Takeshi Kitano has an uprooted importance. Next thing you know, you’ll be able to appreciate it one way or another-though unlike Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s Kyua or Kairo-you won’t need another serving. Justifiably, indeed, that Hana-bi maybe one of Kitano’s best works-to my opinion however, my choice of films depend on how they are craftily presented. Takeshi Kitano may be the Quentin Tarantino of the Japanese cinema, manipulated the camera on his own terms; in some way defied the tradition of contemporary filmmaking technically and visually: less pretention, but with certain exaggeration. It also made me think that Hana-bi may be the overqualified arthouse film, although I believe that Takeshi Kitano will oppose such opinion.

Likewise, I will not push myself into admitting that Hana-bi is one of the greatest films I’ve seen, though I will not also consider this to be crap. I have managed to like Kyua (Cure) and Kairo (Pulse), even Kinji Fukasaku’s Battle Royale-films from the Land of the Rising Sun that successfully breached the barrier of my choice of cinema. With respect to Takeshi Kitano, I did, in a way appreciate Hana-bi-maybe because it introduced me to a discernible new method of storytelling and probably treated us to a style diverse from the usual Japanese cinema. I maybe hallucinating or whatever, but I’ll be going back this Friday to see Kitano’s other films.


Etchie Piñgol
October 1, 2003
Office of Student Affairs
University of the Philippines Manila

random thoughts on Sluizer's The Vanishing

from an entry I posted in Pinoydvd:


I know I posted the same film in this thread a few months back, however since I saw the movie again for the nth time, I found some new insights. Popped George Sluizer's Spoorloos (The Vanishing) again in my dvd player last night. Arguably, it is still the best paranoid thriller I've seen in my lifetime.

Spoorloos is far different from an abundance of run-of-the-mill thrillers that came up after it. It is a character study of a man that what we consider as a sociopath. It's remake, though, has this overemphasis to the sociopath just failed miserably. It could've been successful in anyway, but since Sluizer believed that Americans prefer a fairy-tale ending, he chose the road often travelled path and paid dearly for it. Anyway, Spoorloos presents not the factors that threatened Raymond's sanity, but rather the opposite. His threats to the society are clearly magnified. He's undoubtedly intelligent (taking for example how his body would react at certain circumstances, making notes on his pulse rates, etc.), his world revolves in numbers, and from what this explains to us how his mind processes it. There is a need for something, a void that only an devilish act could somehow fill. Maybe that is what his mind demands and his environment dictates him to do.

It's not the reality that you cannot trust anybody, but the fact that anybody can be someone like Raymond Lemorne. The paranoia is read between the lines, how such a harmless person could at a single twitch of a dysfunctional brain could send a sinister message to his helpless carcass. Thus, the deed could be performed without an iota of hesitation. And that, is certainly scary.

A Puzzling Love Story

Enigma
Directed by: Michael Apted
Screenplay by: Tom Stoppard
Based on the novel by Robert Harris
Copyright 2001
Released by: Columbia Tri-Star
Cast: Dougray Scott, Kate Winslet, Saffron Burrows, Jeremy Northam
Available in Region 1 DVD at Amazon.com

Historians believe that the Battle of Atlantic was the most underreported battle that took place during World War 2. Primarily because land warfare took the brunt of media coverage due to the increasing number of correspondents sent to the front lines. The war at sea, meanwhile, was left forgotten-only to those who were there to witness the conflict attested that it happened. Reportages were difficult to come by, many reporters preferred dying in Normandy, Tarawa, Iwo Jima, and Ardennes rather than disappear in the cold waters of the Atlantic or in the depths of the Pacific. It was fear that purged in the hearts of these men, especially the crews of convoys, the unknowing preys of the German ("Wolf pack") U-boats sent to sink them and deprive Great Britain and the Soviet Union of much needed supplies from the United States. Without air or sea cover, these merchant shipping convoys were merely sitting ducks from the target sights of the German submarine commanders. The only hope that kept these men alive was the effort of the British Intelligence in breaking the German submarine codes which went by the codename: Enigma.

Loosely based from Robert Harris’ novel of the same title, the film is basically…a love story set during the height of the codebreaking operations of the British at Bletchley Park. Tom Stoppard ("Shakespeare in Love") wrote the screenplay and Michael Apted ("Enough") directed the film. Dougray Scott ("MI2") played Thomas Jericho, a brilliant mathematician responsible for deciphering the German U-boat codes that eventually became known as Ultra, and at the same time recovering from a lost love that earned him a return ticket to Cambridge. The urgency of the global condition saw Tom Jericho a redeployment back to Bletchley Park, the center of the codebreaking operations of the war. The mystery of a crytogram stashed beneath a loose floor panel on the cottage of his missing loved one, Claire Romilly (Saffron Burrows) added sufficient weight to the basic conflict of the story. Tom, then sought help from Claire’s cottage mate, Hester Wallace played by Titanic star Kate Winslet, who admirably portrayed a nerdy, British country girl employed at Bletchley as an intercept clerk. As tensions grew and the climax slowly developed, we see the montage between the impending assault of German U-boats on a convoy and Hester Wallace’s attempt to decipher the codes found in Claire’s cottage.

Enigma is a comparably different from the Michael Douglas-Melanie Griffith thriller Shining Through, for it blatantly portrayed espionage on a rather, distinctive manner. Most spy films revolted on the clandestine affairs that normally transpire on enemy territory. Enigma represented these covert activities within the confines of Bletchley Park-the `spies’ unknowingly, the men and women working there. Actually, it wasn’t a typical espionage story, not your usual James Bond or MI6 thing, or rehashed from a John Le Carre novel. Tom Jericho is not your run-of-the-mill spy, but rather a man caught between his love for a certain woman and the profound interest being served by his country at war. In circumspection, the film evidently depicted the Battle of Atlantic being fought in subtle clashes; of brains magnified as mechanical beings; of men in pursuit of unbreakable codes, and the exemplary heroism and bravery these civilians endured.

Likewise, Tom Stoppard did a magnificent job of fictionalizing the discovery of the Katyn Forest massacre of Polish officers the Soviets perpetrated during the winter war of 1940. Although the incident was covered up and denied by the Soviets throughout the war to preserve the alliance Stalin pacted with the United States and Great Britain, nevertheless its discovery late in the 1940s somehow nearly severed the ties. Its incorporation in the storyline, however merely complicated the flow of the plot, but it served as the primary conflict aside from the race against time effort of the Bletchley Park crew to crack the new German U-boat codes.

Dougray Scott’s portrayal of Thomas Jericho, is nonetheless, flawed. I was expecting an Alan Turing-esque character (or a cameo, perhaps?), a man of exemplary intelligence who wouldn’t notice the budding romance between him and an intercept clerk. Though Dougray Scott performed perfectly well, his assuming a role of a goody-two-shoes nerdy mathematician somehow pulled him off the bad-guy/villainous image he exuded in John Woo’s Mission Impossible 2. Saffron Burrows as Claire Romilly, played a small part but influenced greatly in the molding of Tom Jericho. I admired Kate Winslet in this film, as Hester Wallace she delivered the part almost impeccably-the country girl dragged by Tom Jericho to solve the mystery of the coded messages they both found on Claire’s floor panels. Jeremy Northham did a remarkable acting as British Intelligence operative Wigram in pursuit of Tom Jericho regarding the disappearance of Claire Romilly and to unmask the existence of a German spy within Bletchley Park.

So many films and books were written regarding the codebreaking operations the British and the Americans undertook during the Second World War-but none of them as poignant and as distinct as Enigma. Neal Stephenson’s Cryptonomicon, Ed Harris’ Codename: Emerald and perhaps, Shining Through may have been the filmic and literary paradigms that created a major effect on the cinematization of Robert Harris’ novel. However, I haven’t read the book (though I have a copy of his non-fiction book Selling Hitler), but I’ve seen the adaptation of his other work, Fatherland that featured Rutger Hauer. In contrast, Enigma may not have the thrilling climax and the anti-climactic denouement that Fatherland have, but in terms of the dramatic elements (which I think contributed to the development of both the characters and the conflict itself) that Tom Stoppard had included in the screenplay, it overshadowed the harsh realities of global conflict.

Etchie Piñgol
© June 2, 2003
Office of Student Affairs
University of the Philippines Manila

The Reality of Fantasy

Blow-Up
Directed By: Michelangelo Antonioni
Screenplay by: Michelangelo Antonioni and Tonino Guerra
Inspired by a short story by Julio Cortazar
Copyright 1966
Released by: Carlo Ponti Productions/Warner Brothers Inc.
Cast: David Hemmings, Vanessa Redgrave, Sarah Miles

I carry no reason to believe that Michelangelo Antonioni’s film Blow-Up (1966) is a great film, as opposed to film critic Roger Ebert’s claim and inclusion to his book The Great Movies. Maybe I’m just as cynical as the character Thomas exudes in the film, full of languor and deliberate sarcasm, attempting to live a life of incidental ennui and premeditated lethargy. Likewise, I can also attribute such to the fact that I haven’t seen a single Antonioni film except this. Although it’s not as bad as anyone could possibly imagine, but in my case it’s presumably a baptism that turned out pretty disappointing.

Yes. Unconsciously, that perhaps makes this film great. Well, to Roger Ebert, of course-in a sense, somehow succeeded in its primary purpose. Blow-Up is categorized as an artfilm, the description of artfilm being those that are not essential for mainstream release for qualities that goes beyond the normal quality of a typical theatrical production. There are a lot of distinctions this film radiates that its qualification in such sort maybe a consolation, after all. Antonioni, for instance is a master in this craft that Blow-Up (his first English-language film, to-be followed by The Passenger [1975], who stars a young but promising Jack Nicholson) seemed as his fitting preliminary to a range of non-Italian works.

I anticipated this movie having read Ebert’s review, of course, and somehow his article contributed to a bugging necessity to see the film-which he subtly (whatever he meant, it has a different appeal to me) insinuated as a likely amalgamation of mystery and surreality. From this impression, it enticed an uncommon compulsion to have a peek into the movie believing the greatness factor as the normal means to like it and concur to what Ebert had written. It did not. Besides I watched it once, and constrained my buttocks to stand at least two hours of filmic tediousness, marvelling (an irony, I know) how Antonioni managed to come up with such uncharacteristic masterpiece.

The film stars David Hemmings (an unknowing actor in my book) as a fashion photographer stuck in a mud of boredom and evident discontent, sporting a Beatleseque haircut, driving a Rolls convertible and perhaps, living a life uncertain if he’s happy with what he’s doing or not. Although his lifestyle may be the perfect mold of the majority of single people opt for in their continuing existence, Thomas, however is emanating the opposite. We could not pinpoint and recognize whether Thomas is pleased with how his world revolves, but there is a stark contrast as soon as he picks up his camera and starts shooting. Hence, I believe that this film is, at any point, a representation of irony.

This is further complicated when Thomas treks to a park and witnesses a couple. At this point, questions abruptly pop up: Are they fighting? Flirting? Playing? Or merely having a good time? This queries may not be for Thomas to answer (nor for the audience as Antonioni could have planned in anyway), however it is a sight to see that deciding to capture it frame by frame is precisely what he has in mind. Enter Vanessa Redgrave (the pouty lips and the checkered blouse-a mixture of concealed feminine alacrity and innate `Britishness’), the unwilling victim of Thomas’ candid excursion, caught in the Nikon (or Pentax or whatever) lens-a sedentary entrapment in a reel of negative. She goes after Thomas for the film he took of her and her companion, but when he refuses her, she follows him to his studio and uncovers herself in an attempt to seduce the troubled photographer to give her the film. He gives her the wrong roll and keeps for himself the right one. He develops the film and as it turns out what he saw in the park, may be or may not be a murder in progress…

It should’ve been a murder-mystery from this point on, exemplified the question of fantasy versus reality. What Thomas saw may be different from what his camera saw, and this is the beginning of a long journey towards achieving the appropriate answer. The answer could be found as the story develops, however, it asks us another set of complex queries-this time focused mainly on Thomas as the one investigating his discovery and not as Thomas, as merely a witness to a might-be act of misdemeanor: Is it really murder? Or a mere product of his feral imagination accentuated by his camera? It leaves the audience (us) a thing to ponder on, even as the `The End’ closing billboard appears-perhaps the `signature’ Antonioni scene whereas the character simply vanishes (according to Ebert Antonioni once said that it was taken directly from anything Shakesperean, "characters are simply spirits in a play that floats away in the end"), add a principal weight to the mystery the film tries to achieve, and eventually succeeded in achieving.

Although I managed to appreciate the film (thanks to the feature-length commentary on the DVD by Peter Brunette [author of the book, The Films of Michelangelo Antonioni]) somehow, however not in the same degree of appreciation that Roger Ebert felt about it. I could not directly point out technical flaws that might be present in the movie, but I could simply be awed by how Antonioni dissected and presented the difference between realism and fantasy, of the grittiness and lightheartedness of the film’s atmosphere. I won’t stress out the factors that made me believe that this is not a great movie (nevertheless they say that Blow-Up is similar to Antonioni’s first triumph, L`Avventura [1950]), but from what I have noticed bore utter similarities to how David Lynch manipulated mystery and Takeshi Kitano in complicating ennui.

Michelangelo Antonioni is considered to be a master in classic world cinema, a title he shares with notable personalities such as Federico Fellini, Vittorio de Sica, Luchino Visconti, Francois Truffaut, Alfred Hitchcock, Jean-Luc Godard, Alain Resnais, Robert Bresson, and Ingmar Bergman, I still possess a huge respect for him. Even though I wasn’t that much impressed with my intial (and perhaps, my only attempt to view the film) bump with Blow-Up, I still regard it as probably, a masterful and downright approach to the surreality of films that only the best director, like Antonioni, could possibly accomplish.

Etchie Pingol
March 11, 2004
Office of Student Affairs
University of the Philippines Manila