Local Hero

“I know nothing with any certainty, but the sight of stars makes me dream” – Vincent Van Gogh

One of the most common traits of nearly good movies is that they introduce worlds with unique characters and their singular perspectives, then try to make those individuals seem like they’re one of us, that they’re not so different from the viewer at all. What doing this accomplishes, however, is the exact opposite: the characters become tropes – stereotypes that can be neatly categorized and from which we as viewers glean nothing on a personal level. What few filmmakers realize is that life is a series of missed opportunities – to be in the right place at the right time is hard, and to say the right thing at the right time is harder still, and to do both is nigh on impossible. Directors and writers like the Dardennes Brothers know this fact; therefore, their films are full of characters who are content to stay silent most times and when they do speak, they don’t always say what we have been taught by lesser films to expect.

Local Hero falls under the latter category of films, right up there with the best of the Dardennes’ work, but veers closer to comedy than those stolid Belgian dramas. The setting of the town of Ferness is a world unto itself, with characters who have very little apprehensions about their lives and a protagonist, Mac, who learns what he yearning for in his life through the townsfolk – something beyond his home and Porsche, trappings of an expensive and hollow lifestyle.

To call the world of Local Hero quaint is to insult the seriousness that lies underneath the film’s exterior. At its heart, the film asks why we are who we are: are we defined by that which we own or can produce, or do the people and events that can leave us awestruck, mouths agape in wordless wonder, leave a longer lasting mark?

Local Hero commandeered my interest with its asides and sight gags, but it truly captured my heart in the second-to-last shot where the hearo has been denied paradise and must return to the purgatory of his own home. Mac enters his cold kitchen, a space that will never match the warmth of Ferness’s pub (or provide as meaningful of company), and exits to his patio where he remains alone, staring at the empty unwavering city lights that pale in comparison to a Scottish starscape that Van Gogh could only dream of.