“The rich visual surface and engaging voiceover of Slow Glass convey an extended metaphor, which links light, glass, and lens. An ‘opening’ shot (a smashed windowpane) and a ‘closing’ one (the window bricked up) frame the film. As it slowly reveals its own artifice, the realist surface is interrupted, as when a car mirror shows reflections of a different journey than the one visible through the windscreen. These constructed ‘mistakes,’ which break the flow, are so crafted as to invade the image and unsettle the word. Direct evocation of the past—a 1950s childhood—allows the film to question its depiction of the present… Smith brings formidable skill to bear in a film which scrutinizes the very ‘speculations’ it incites.”

—A.L. Rees, A History of Experimental Film and Video (London: British Film Institute, 1999)