“The Girl Chewing Gum was made during a rich period of avant-garde practice in which many filmmakers, both in Britain and beyond, sought to dismantle the illusionist transparency of dominant cinema. Most of those invested in this project took up a focus on filmic materiality, refusing the possibility of a ‘window on the world’ in favour of a modernist concern with the cinematic apparatus. In The Girl Chewing Gum, Smith proceeded somewhat differently: his interest lay above all in interrogating the conventions that structured cinematic signification through a reflexive deployment of those very same conventions, rather than any out-and-out negation of them. The Girl Chewing Gum offers a playful yet trenchant exploration of the role that language – and particularly voiceover – plays in the production of filmic meaning and asserts the absolute impossibility of immediacy and neutrality. But despite its anti-illusionist criticality, the film remains deeply engaged with narrative and humour, two terms not often associated with British avant-garde cinema of the 1970s.”
- Erika Balsom, ‘In Focus: The Girl Chewing Gum’, Tate Research Publication, 2015