Critics reviews

Tower, more than most films of its kind, is deeply observational, and the intimacy it achieves with its protagonist makes it one of the most effective character studies of the past several years. Radwanski's aesthetic, carefully honed over the course of his three well-regarded shorts, is exceptionally rigorous... and the results are as impressively singular as they are often distressingly suffocating.

There are Proustian incantations and CGI screens, peerlessly elegant visual jokes, a personal look at Chile's past that's more resonantly political than any of Pablo Larraín's Pinochet-era dramas, plus an absurdly lovely metaphor for filmmaking in the main character's collection of model ships in bottles. Aptly, it closes on a séance: Here we are attempting to analyze a great director's swan song, while he chuckles softly from the hereafter.

Although unassuming, the film's stubbornness lingers in memory and acquires a touching aspect in its commitment to a lost character that seems a warped distillation of certain Canadian traits. That Tower is a rare, uncorrupted from of regional cinema also finds expression in its central animal antagonist (and possible metaphorical double): after all, Toronto is Raccoon City.

Radwanski's film felt like a port in a storm. I felt right at home with Radwanski's portrayal of Canadian complacency, mundanity and vapid politeness. Without judging his characters—though, really, there is only one, from whom we never depart; the rest are just passing through his life — Radwanski manages to articulate a certain condition, a fear of fully engaging with life.