Woman In The Park

Six 8mm shorts by Bill Douglas were shown at the opening Gala of 2024's Glasgow Short Film Festival. Many had not been seen since the late 1960s when they were made, though clips from some do appear in Bill Douglas: My Best Friend.

By now Bill Douglas indulges in play with this from Bijou Productions, cutout characters making opening credits. Gerard Black's score is full of synthesiser bubbles and stabs, a later dreamlike aerial shot revealed in subsequent Q&A to be a treasure from trespass. A box of items is marked Black Magic because it's recycled from the chocolates, but its role seems perilously close to wizardry if not voodoo.

There are hints, entirely coincidental, of The Conversation, but that mixture of paranoia and surveillance is a heady one. So too the circling and revelation, as uncertainty is drawn to different poles like a malfunctioning compass. The live score at times verges on discord, now vintage electronics like the lines of an encephalograph, marking time but hinting at greater meaning. Within its 12 minutes there are a fair few reversals, some almost literally. A folder seen inverted is later seen again and with that change in perspective we're invited to reconsider what we have seen thus far.