The Watchmaker's Apprentice

'The Watchmaker's Apprentice' is the best film I've seen for a long time. It's a documentary about a watchmaker and the younger man who eventually becomes his apprentice. But it's also about things that are fading and becoming valued less these days - patience, beauty, great craftsmanship, excellence and creating things that are, ironically, timeless.

I went into this having no interest at all in time pieces, I don't wear a watch in fact I don't even own one.

I think not being interested stems back to my mothers Westminster which chimed every quarter and always on the hour when important dialogue was on the television.

My expectations and thinking was this is going to be a bore and I will probably delete it after 10 minutes and move on.

Well the 10 minutes soon came up and before you could say cuckoo the documentary was over.

Have to say I really enjoyed it, and was in awe of these master craftsmen. To sit behind a work bench for up to 16 hours crafting a minute piece of metal, well I certainly couldn't do it.

Not sure when this was filmed because Dr George Daniels died in 2011 (yea I did a little research) but the apprentice Roger Smith is now a watchmaker in his own right even employing his own apprentices.

Some lovely filming of the Isle of Man and Georges collection of historic cars, but yea an interesting doc well worth a butchers.

Superb insight into the history of timepieces, as well as an illuminating picture of an important figure in the creation of some of the world's most exquisite watches. John Rhys-Davies is terrific as the narrator.

"The Watchmaker's Apprentice" is one of the best (non-animal kingdom) documentaries I've ever seen. A fascinating and polished production.

This could have been so much better. A serious subject and it could be delivered as timeless documentary but it comes across as a child's show with a voice over you would hear on a kids made for TV Christmas movie.