MovieChat Forums > Tower (2017) Discussion > Unique, and depressingly relevant

Unique, and depressingly relevant

posted 8 years ago by DarlesChickens
2 replies | jump to latest

The events surrounding those 95-minutes of terror are the inspiration for Keith Maitland’s remarkable documentary Tower. Maitland’s film isn’t a True Crime doc — Whitman is an afterthought here; his name isn’t even mentioned till the very end. Instead, Maitland strives to recreate the events of the day through rotoscoped animation (similar to what Richard Linklater did with Waking Life and A Scanner Darkly). Rather than settle into the standard talking-head documentary format, Maitland has young actors playing the victims, survivors and police officers involved in the event telling the story as if it were happening in real-time: http://www.cutprintfilm.com/reviews/fantasia-2016-tower/

[–] Kompressor_Fan 7 years ago

I went yesterday, and this detail is something that stood out and impressed me: the fact they only said his name once or twice, and he was never once "shown" in the footage. This kept the story focused on the victims, the bystanders, and the responders. It was a very good move on the director's part.

[–] paudie 7 years ago

I saw it yesterday in the Cork Film Festival in Ireland.
It's a really well made movie showing the effects of those events on victims and survivors to this day. As the previous poster said it was right that focus was on the victims rather than the shooter.

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