You may have seen Grizzly Man, the Herzog curiosity where bear munches nitwit, reclines his sticky paws into his lower back, stretches wide with relief, burps and moves on upstream, leaving us to ponder the harsh truth that man and beast together isn’t entirely natural. A not very similar but nonetheless cautionary tale of man’s apparent ease and then inevitable disharmony with nature, takes place in this gentle tale of one man’s (Bill Travers) psychologically questionable close tie with an otter set in the backdrop of a swoonsome Scottish village. The debt of affection Travers holds for the otter is seeded in the realisation that ‘their’ cramped London flat is simply not big enough for the ‘arrangement’ and so Travers makes the not entirely mislabelled life changing decision to move to an idyllic Scottish Isle to move the relationship forward, as it were. Not entirely unlike Linda McCartney to look at (maybe it’s the Wellington boots and rugged scenery), Virginnia McKenna plays the completely unflirtatious, strawberry blonde, Island doctor who is as at home with the otter, her dog and nature as she is with her bucket load of amorous reserve. It’s also under her care that the otter snuffs it. No wonder the heartbroken partner of the deceased ‘Mij’ keeps her at arm’s length then.
johnnyboy
August 24, 2009 at 12:44 am
Mr Travers, with the spade, in the garden next to the privit hedge.
Mij Repellent
October 27, 2009 at 2:10 pm
I beg to differ, it wasn’t Mr Travers who done in Mij (as if he would!) but a random farmer while they were all out walking a country lane and we all thought we were getting a happy ending. I suppose we were being taught a lesson as the review indicates, but it was a harsh one.
Lee James Turnock
September 1, 2011 at 5:15 pm
Another ‘end of term’ favourite, along with Bugsy Malone and the Last Unicorn.