GRADE: A+

In “Blow-Up,” one of cinema’s greatest abstract efforts, the search for the true nature of reality is given a beguiling treatment through the story of what may, or may not be, a cold-blooded conspiracy and murder.

One of cinema’s most written about and debated films, it has been called everything from a “naively bad experimental film” (Pauline Kael) to an “arresting and provocative experience” (Leonard Maltin). Perhaps those like Kael simply rejected the notion that certain aspects of subjective thought can only be expressed through nontraditional forms, an approach that is essentially antithetical to standard Hollywood moviemaking models (which also explains why critics such as Kael failed to recognize the genius of revolutionary filmmakers like Stanley Kubrick, whose work she and others consistently misunderstood).

Directed by Italy’s Michelangelo Antonioni, “Blow-Up,” his first film in English, is the story of a callous, but successful fashion photographer in mod 1960’s London. One day while taking photographs for his own pleasure in a quiet park, he snaps a series of pictures of a middle-aged man and a younger woman who appear to be cavorting in the manner of a couple in love. Back at his studio, he develops the pictures and soon after realizes he may have caught the two in the act of something sinister.

It’s hard to tell, of course, because the photos were shot at a considerable distance without benefit of a telephoto lens. To satisfy his curiosity, he begins to enlarge the photographs to see if they reveal anything. The paradox of doing this, of course, is in the fact that as the photos are developed in greater and greater size, they also become increasingly grainier and difficult to make out. That paradox lies at the heart of “Blow Up.” Think of it as Antonioni’s way of saying that often “the more we see, the less we know.”

During a post-production interview for the film, Antonioni explained: “We know that under the revealed image there is another one, which is more faithful to reality. And under this one there is yet another; and again, another under this last one, down to the true image of that absolute mysterious reality that nobody will ever see.”

In short order, the photographer becomes convinced he has chronicled and witnessed a murder. That puts him on the road to finding the woman in the picture, but his obsession with solving the mystery, if there even is one to be solved, may come at a substantial price.

The elliptical nature of his quest is part of what makes “Blow Up” so fascinating; it’s one of those films that manages with each showing to reveal something different. Short on narrative, with long stretches containing little or no dialogue, “Blow Up” is something like a Mobious Strip—following its surface may lead you back to the beginning, but in truth, where you end up is someplace other than from where you began.

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