Résumés(1)
On August 1st, 1966, a sniper rode the elevator to the top floor of the University of Texas Tower and opened fire, holding the campus hostage for 96 minutes. When the gunshots were finally silenced, the toll included 16 dead, three dozen wounded, and a shaken nation left trying to understand. Combining archival footage with rotoscopic animation in a dynamic, never-before-seen way, TOWER reveals the action-packed untold stories of the witnesses, heroes and survivors of America's first mass school shooting, when the worst in one man brought out the best in so many others. (South by Southwest Film Festival)
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Critiques (1)
Tower is a brilliant evocation of the situation during the mass shooting on the fateful day in Austin when America lost its innocence, shown from various points of view of the victims and bystanders, who, in the words of one of the witnesses, were sorted into heroes and cowards. It is a chilling depiction of incomprehensibility and chaos that transcends the bounds of society and civilisation, to which every person responds differently yet identically in a certain overarching irrationality. In this respect, it makes sense that the film approaches the shooter as an anonymous and unseen entity. All the more catastrophic for the whole documentary then is the nonconceptual shift in the climax, in which there is suddenly talk of forgiveness and Charles Whitman’s actions are related to violence in the media and Columbine, though not a word is spoken about the man who pulled the trigger.
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Photos (6)
Photo © 51. MFF Karlovy Vary 2016
