Blow-Up 1966

A glimpse into the extravagant life of a fashion photographer, Thomas (David Hemmings), mirrors the experiences of the real-life icon of the “Swinging London” scene, David Bailey. Eager to capture authentic emotions and human experiences, Thomas attempts to blend in with the everyday man.

After spending a night in a doss house—an inexpensive lodging frequented by the homeless—he rushes into a photo shoot with the stunning Veruschka (Veruschka von Lehndorff) at his studio, only to find himself late. Frustrated and in a hurry to catch her flight to Paris at 11 AM, Veruschka confronts him for making her wait over an hour. Despite the tension, Thomas manages to take some incredible shots of her in varied poses, showcasing his talent for eliciting emotional depth from his models.

However, his behavior takes a turn for the worse as he conducts a subsequent shoot with a group of six models, treating them poorly and abandoning the set when things don’t go as planned. On his way out, he is approached by two aspiring models, Jane (Jane Birkin) and Gillian (Gillian Hills), but he brushes them off to wander into an antiques shop instead. After a brief interaction with the shop owner and her assistant, he buys a propeller, looking for unique landscapes that sadly aren’t available.

While roaming through Maryon Park, he captures a candid moment of a couple in love, leading to an altercation with the furious Jane, who wants the film containing her image. She pleads for him to return the photos but remains evasive about her reasons, later offering to exchange sex for the film. In a playful twist, Thomas hands her a false roll of film, only to discover later that she had provided him with a fake phone number.

After developing the film back at his studio, Thomas is shocked to find eerie images of what seems to be a corpse in the park, suggesting a sinister undercurrent to the day’s events. His concern escalates when he realizes that Jane appears to have known about the danger lurking nearby. Just as he’s about to pursue the truth, he is interrupted by the two young models from earlier, prompting a fleeting moment of distraction before he sets off again to the park.

Upon returning, he locates the very body he had previously photographed but finds it has vanished without a trace. Confused and realizing his darkroom has been vandalized with most of his work gone, he decides to track Jane down again.

His search leads him into a club featuring the electrifying performance of The Yardbirds, where he impulsively snatches a piece of broken guitar neck from the stage—a moment of desperation in a whirlwind of chaos. Doubts encircle him as he later tosses the neck aside in disillusionment, a symbolic gesture of his own lost ambitions.

At a wild party near the Thames, he reunites with Veruschka and his agent Ron (Peter Bowles), yet the weight of his discovery doesn’t translate into action, leaving him feeling isolated and disoriented. As the sun rises, he returns to the park only to be met with disappointment when the body has disappeared once more, shrouded in the uncertainty that echoes throughout his already tumultuous day. In a surreal twist, he is left watching a mimed tennis match, the living imagery of his surroundings slowly dissolving into nothingness as he becomes both an observer and a part of the fading landscape.