Italian maestro Michelangelo Antonioni made a bold move into the commercial mainstream with Blow-Up, the first of three English-language films he made for MGM. The central character, Thomas (David Hemmings), is a successful fashion photographer who lives in a mythical ‘Swinging London’ of the mid-60s. He is a creature of work and pleasure but of no inner force or loyalty. Uncertainty, insecurity and alienation have now reached such a pitch of intensity that the Antonioni protagonist has come to doubt even the validity of his own perceptions. Indeed, this is the central theme of the film. Thomas discovers that he may have unwittingly photographed a murder in a London park, and his efforts to discover the truth by manipulating the images he captured — a tour de force sequence that sums up the entire film — only leads to further uncertainty and unease. The film’s outstanding formal qualities — the brilliant use of colour, the uncanny sense of atmosphere and place — are faithfully captured in this excellent digital restoration.