User reviews

In The Black Tower, as with many of his other shorts, Smith demonstrates that a Structuralist short can still engage without the need for close textual analysis, whether or not that was his intention...

The premise is a simple one - Smith edits together a set of still shots of a foreboding black water tower near his London home, taken from various angles, and weaves a narrative around them. Taking cues from the area in which the photograph was taken he concocts a story wherein the narrator is haunted by the tower wherever he turns - thus a shot from an area of grassland becomes his vacation in Shropshire, whereas a shot from a nearby hospital lends the hospital itself to the narrative. Smith has stated that he is surprised at how much his viewers have taken to the narrative, since he originally set out to satirise the narrative form - however, it is not difficult to see why this is the case. Smith has a beautifully observed sense of humour which shines throughout the film; a quality that is especially refreshing when the film is viewed alongside other rather more austere works in an Avant-Garde film class.

The Black Tower is a film where the narrator tells of how, after surviving on Strawberry Mivvies from the ice-cream van for a few weeks (chosen for the vitamin C) he is initially confused when an ambulance arrives - "At first I thought it was the ice-cream van and wondered why they were playing a different tune." Elsewhere he explains how he "took to wearing a cap with a large peak, so there was no danger of the tower entering (his) periphery vision." The absurdity of this humour combined with the foreboding gloom of the tower itself create a remarkable atmosphere of tension within the piece - one cannot help but be drawn into the dark and strange world of the hapless narrator. The beauty of Smith's work is that, despite it's structural investigation of the fabric of the filmic medium, it is always infused with the endearing personality of Smith itself. It is this quality that has made Smith a firm favourite of students of the Avant-Garde. Myself included, naturally.

An experimental 20-minute short made up of two primary elements: numerous fixed camera shots, and a blasé but engaging narration. Despite the narrative structure of a man being gradually tormented by the ominous presence of a black tower wherever he goes, ultimately leading to his consumption by the tower, this is still a very unconventionally made film that toys with the viewers' perceptions.

The mundane (sounds of birds chirping and cars passing by, images of washing-up and folded clothes) meets the extraordinary (secondary narration played in reverse behind primary narration, shots of the tower looming over landscapes where it shouldn't belong) as the narrator's mind breaks down, and editing tricks are employed to convey this further (cars seem to disappear when passing behind a tree, spooky single frames are edited in with more mundane shots). Sounds and images are used to trick the viewer into expecting one thing, before revealing another - these include colour frames (a nightmare about the tower is followed by a foreboding red, which is actually just a red bedsheet), intangible noises (sinister burning noises are actually just the fireplace), and. most importantly, black frames (seemingly innocuous until the narrator begins dreaming about the black walls of the tower pressing against his face).

The whole thing looks gorgeous, with its shots of the symmetrical tower standing centre-frame that were taken from various angles around director John Smith's neighbourhood. The experiment here was not only to misdirect the viewer with verbal and visual cues, thus illustrating the toolkit a filmmaker possesses, but to thread a narrative across various related and unrelated images - in this case, photography of Smith's home and neighbourhood, some of which included the black tower. The meaning behind all of this is up to the viewer - themes and symbols are planted, which include paranoia, surveillance, dreams and rural decay, but they only develop when the viewer engages with them.

Functioning as both a cinematic experiment and a psychological horror short, without being either pretentious or derivative, this is a wonderful film that deserves to be better known.

10/10.

I can't thank my friend enough for showing me this film, because this is exactly the kind of film I want to make, a very confusing budgeted short film, I didn't think I'd ever see a film like this, this film isn't conventional, it's mostly like a slideshow, with only some actual camera effects. This isn't saying it's terrible, I have been searching for a film like this for years, maybe since 2018? I'm so glad I have found a film that depicts exactly what I want to make, and I am just glad I am not the only one who likes it (thanks Jeremy!) I doubt I'd ever see a film like this again, but if I do I hope it's as good as this.