A brilliant experiment in sound, vision and themes.

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.

A man finds himself haunted by a mysterious black tower that appears to follow him wherever he goes.

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The Black Tower

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