I have already written about a couple of movies written and directed by Bill Forsyth, a Scotsman with a unique filmmaking sensibility. The more of his work I see, the more I am reminded of the work of Finnish director Aki Kaurismaki. Each has a distinctive style, and I like how both have a deep humanity in their work.
I was surprised to see 1983’s Local Hero starts in Houston, Texas. This is where Peter Reigert is an executive for Knox, an oil company headed by Burt Lancaster. It was interesting Reigert is obviously a New Yorker living in Texas, so he’s already a bit of a stranger, even in the place he calls home. Then the company sends him on an assignment to coastal Scotland, because it is mistakenly believed he is of Scottish ancestry. So, the movie quickly alienates him from his natural environment two times over.
The company wants to build a massive drilling operation and refinery that will displace the town of Ferness (in reality, the town of Pennan was used for filming) and destroy its coastline. Together with an impossibly young and gangly Peter Capaldi, he arranges with the town’s only accountant (Denis Lawson) to convince the residents to part with their property, as the company needs all property from the coast to a mile inland.
In what could have been an Ealing comedy from the 1940’s or 1950’s, the townsfolk pretend to play hardball while secretly being all too happy to part ways with their hometown. What is interesting is Reigert seems to realize sooner than any of the residents how much will be lost if the refinery is built. Instead of relying on the usual clichés, he’s not the Ugly American and the villagers aren’t angry to be displaced.
Overall, the film is a bit too low-key and melancholy for me to firstly label it as a comedy. Still, this is a deeply funny movie. It’s just the humorous bits are the kind of oddball things that might happen in real life. When we first see Capaldi, he’s at the airport to pick up Reigert, but an unnecessary belief in maintaining secrecy has him concealing the sign with Reigert’s name on it. Instead, Capaldi just gives those departing the plane a quick glimpse of the sign from inside his coat, as if he’s trying to fence stolen goods. There’s another neat bit between the two guys at dinner when Capaldi squeezes a lemon wedge and the juice goes straight into Reigert’s left eye. Then Reigert accidentally squeezes lemon juice into his other eye. This is slapstick, to be sure, but that’s the type of scene which shows the mind behind it had seen the classics.
I don’t want to say much more about the film, as I don’t want to deprive potential viewers of the discoveries they will find here. I will, however, throw out some more disparate elements of the plot, in an attempt to sweeten the pot. There’s a young Jenny Seagrove as a deep-sea diver who believes the oil company is going to build an underwater lab off the coast. There’s Burt Lancaster as the company CEO, who has a curious obsession with astronomy. There’s the bomber jets that do exercises on the coast, and as the village priest puts it, “As long they’re bombing the beach, they’re not bombing anywhere else. It’s kind of comforting.” There’s Fulton Mackay as a wily beachcomer who pulls from the ocean such curious goods as a crate full of ripe oranges from South Africa. There’s the multiple jobs each villager has, such as the manager of the only inn also being its sole accountant, while also one of the accordion players in the local band.
Even after seeing Local Hero, it is kind of hard to believe it manages to tie together these, and other, disparate elements. And yet, this weirdly beautiful and quirky film completely sticks the landing. So, Bill Forsyth is three-for-three in my book, and I look forward to seeing more of his work.
Dir: Bill Forsyth
Starring Peter Reigert, Denis Lawson, Peter Capaldi
Watched on Criterion Collection blu-ray