Local Hero Burt Lancaster, Peter Riegert, Fulton Mackay Director: Bill Forsyth
While Iran and Iraq were fighting around the oilfields along their border, in year three of the bloodiest Middle Eastern war of the 20th century, America's appetite for the black stuff was growing exponentially. At the same time, Glasgow-born director Bill Forsyth delivered a low-key oil story that delighted the critics and did huge box office around the world.
Local Hero is the affectionate, funny, humanistic and gentle story of how a Scottish fishing village managed its encounter with Big Oil. And the film has aged well: beautiful rural Scotland and big bad Houston, Texas, are strikingly contrasted, while its characters slowly reveal themselves, each developing through the narrative with wry humour and tenderness.
Despite the subject matter, there are no real villains here, just individuals with foibles and weaknesses, and dreams, and who cling to the questions we all have: what is the point of our lives? Where are we going? And, where have we come from?
The bewitching cinematography of Scottish seascapes and skies serves to illuminate these riddles.
The action opens in Houston, where Knox Oil and Gas is drawn to the possibilities of new oil reserves off the coast of Scotland. And duly, Knox functionary Mac MacIntyre (chosen for his Scottish name) - a nice turn from actor Peter Riegert - is dispatched to the sleepy fishing village of Ferness to persuade its residents to allow the building of a Knox refinery there, or buy the village if necessary.