Tower

A tragedy treated with so much respect. Not like any other documentary out there that I've seen. Very creative and incredibly heartfelt. The second half was some of the saddest stuff I've seen.

Excellent documentary that doesn't waste a second and drops the viewer right in the thick of it all from the opening minute. Loved the approach and much credit goes to the editor for skilfully blending animated reenactments and archival footage into one consistently compelling whole. Sad to know this event stands as the genesis of what's now a terrible epidemic in present day America.

Beautiful, vivid and unique. Tower is a depiction of true crime history that carries itself less like a documentary than a moving painting- a human mosaic told from multiple angles. Fear, humility, heroism, nostalgia, love, grief and gratitude splash onto the screen, untainted by the main antagonist, who is never shown. This choice highlights the true experience of the day and its aftermath for the people of Austin.

Aesthetically unique and narratively compelling portrait. Great work.

Exciting film, great blend of animations with occasional original footage. The suspense is simply remarkable, the editing is fantastic, and the wonderful characters tie the film together nicely.

The idea to rotoscope this was inspired - allows reenactment that a) doesn't feel like a cheap history channel doco, and b) visually relates memory, focusing on small details like the color of hair, while completely omitting the surroundings.

Creative and powerful.

Kudos for focusing on the heroes and not at all glorifying the shooter.

I appreciate how the form helps to dramatize the distance inherent in memory--the animated re-enactments/interviews help set a distant mood, give a sense of sharper and fuzzier memory (both B&W and color), incorporate historical footage to root the film in reality, and then the excellent counterpoint of the survivors breaking in to this memory-dream. I also greatly appreciate the attentiveness to human moments, as well as the corresponding decision to almost elide the shooter from the story.

Wonderfully imagined animation for a terrifying retelling of this harrowing event.

The combination of archival audio/video and rotoscoped dramatisation and interviews work surprisingly effectively to convey the gravitas and sadness of this tragedy. Although, the tacking on to the end of news footage from recent mass shootings does cheapen the experience.

A unique, complex, swelling work of art and heart.

If you can handle the subject matter, this is an excellent documentary on the Genesis of what has become a national epidemic, mass shootings. At first I found the approach to telling the story a bit cringing, but once I got into the story I didn't mind the rotoscoping technique. It's a truly disturbing subject and you'll run the gamut of emotions while you watch it.

An astonishingly creative treatment of actuality. The director takes this moment in history and tells it in a wonderfully inventive way, using archive footage, animation, actors, and quotes. The tension stays for 90 minutes, in a kind of sci-fi way as these characters relate something that had never really happened in America before. But that is sadly all too common. But most of all it is a profound film about survivor's guilt that ends with great context about our world. Highly recommended.

exclusively offering long-burdened survivors the floor shows sensitivity, and the reenactment is dragged into our present-tense by these formal gimmicks, but the underlying approach is straightforward, akin to sitting in on a therapy session where the accuracy and virtues of the process are taken as a given. compare this to THE MISSING PICTURE or THE ACT OF KILLING, films which move beyond mere reconstruction into an interrogation of film's relationship to truth, memory and violence.

Different and enjoyable, but overall I found the animation difficult to communicate with.

Beautifully done. The animation tones down the visual horror without compromising the story telling.

The acting, the music, the animation. I didn't get it. It all seemed in bad taste for such a sober subject. It's so much better at the end when the animation is put to one side. They had interviews with the real people with their genuine voices and faces. Why replace them with bad actors coated in ugly rotoscoping? and Clair de Lune for the execution? I spent the whole movie wondering why all these poor stylistic choices were made. I guess this director just really wanted to animate something.