Showing as part of the FILM183 ‘Saving Nature’ season, Local Hero (1983) blends Bill Forsyth (Gregory’s Girl) gentle comedy with a quietly urgent environmental conscience, following an American oil executive sent to buy a Scottish village for a refinery project who instead becomes entranced by its unspoiled coastline, star filled skies, and fragile ecosystem. What begins as a corporate acquisition slowly transforms into a meditation on landscape, belonging, and the impossibility of putting a price on nature.
A landmark of 1980s British cinema, the film, Produced by David Puttnum, showcases Forsyth’s distinctive blend of warmth, wit, and observational detail, supported by Chris Menges’s luminous cinematography and Mark Knopfler’s atmospheric score (Going Home). Together they create a film that celebrates the textures of place while gently questioning the cost of industrial progress.
Next up in the FILM183 Saving Nature season – Chinatown (1974) on Monday, 27 July.
