Grey Owl und der Schatz der Biber

Richard Attenborough has directed a beautiful picture. If you are accustomed to seeing Brosdan as 007, this is a real departure. But he played the role with subtly and sensitivity.

This story is based on a real with a message that is an important one, then and now.

I saw the British premiere of this in Bridgend, South Wales - Richard Attenborough was met with generous applause, his film with polite applause. It is a film equally of the heart and of the head, with emotions and affecting performances never quite being allowed to get in the way of the beautiful photography.

Charming in its own way and with a fascinating tale to tell, Grey Owl never quite gets fired up in the same way as historical rivals like Braveheart and Titanic. And this, possibly shamefully, probably just ironically, would seem to be due to the very thing that Attenborough is keen to sell his own movie on - its lack of violence, action, sex and, above all, excitement.

Still, a graceful and involving film - one which deserves the tag 'worthy' more than many others.

Pierce Brosnan will probably be the only thing familiar in Richard Attenborough's new biopic. The rest is new to international audiences: Canadian history and First Nations Culture.

"Grey Owl" is a light examination of how an man came to be adopted into the Ojibway of Northern Ontario, learning and preaching environmentalism decades before it became politically correct to do so. The film contains a love story, a moral message, and a man tortured by his past. That torture, though, is not always brought to life with the dramatic impact that it might.

Nevertheless, it is a film which holds its audience without any violence. It pays deep respect to Canada's First Nations, and presents them in a dignified and non-stereotypical manner. Brosnan's performance is somewhat stiff, but I suspect that's just how Lord Attenborough wanted him.

Thanks from a proud Canadian.

All in all a good film and better for the fact that had the film not been made the story might remain hidden to the masses. Brosnan does a good job as the native American with a hidden past and the photography is stunning. To some, this may be too whimsical, to others boring - for me it is a gentle, well-told tale and perfect for family viewing. Now that's not something you get a lot of recently.

The only way a writer could present the conservationist case in the economic slump of the 1930s was by masquerading as primitive man. The story of Grey Owl is a fresh angle on the 20th century's game with the image and reality of the American native. He is also a case study in the way the UK mass media build up celebrities only to tear them down, like the old pagan gods of the year. His story also vibrates with the long-hairs of the 1960s, who had never heard of him, but found the identical vocation. If you don't care about that, this is a fine love story, and account of an identity crisis, in which a man resigns his pride to his woman, only to find that he has won the throne of her heart.