Blow-Up gave me kudos the next day at school, because all the coolest kids had seen it too. Even better, it turned out the "murder" scene was filmed at Maryon Park in Charlton, south-east London, a couple of miles or so from school – though I was an unadventurous boy, and sadly Blow-Up didn't inspire me to immediately visit the park and track down the filming locations. But while this was recognisably the same city, it was a different London from the staid, predictable one I'd grown up in.
On first viewing, the London of Blow-Up seemed to be full of secrets just waiting to be discovered, of beautiful and creative young people at the centre of the cultural universe. In the actual city where I lived, it was possible to have a fabulously glamorous life, to live in a converted warehouse, drive a sports car, watch the Yardbirds – and yes, cavort with naked would-be models.
But the film itself was also troubling. Did David Hemmings's David Bailey-esque photographer witness a murder? If he did, what happened to the killers? Blow-Up is inconclusive on the subject. The film's surreal touches – the mime troupe playing tennis with an invisible ball, the grass painted green in the park, Stockwell Road's maroon shops – give proceedings an air of unreality that undermines the seriousness of the crime. (...)
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