30/05/05 Trauma Revisited

Getting obsessive about this battle with the weeds. They will be beaten.
On a tea break, I stumbled across the film "Ring of Bright Water". A Bank Holiday treat.
I couldn't watch it all the way through though. Way, way too upsetting. I saw that film at the cinema as a small child and was completely traumatised.
The story is basically about a bloke who buys an otter as a pet in London. He then decides to quit the Big Smoke and head up to an idyllic cottage in the Scottish Highlands. He takes the otter (Mij) with him of course. He also meets a bit of local tottie in the fragrant shape of Virginia McKenna. This is all very lovely and heartwarming until....yes, tragedy is just around the corner, and some local fisherman type mistakes Mij for a rat and kills him with a spade.
The film tries to end on an optimistic note when some baby otters are seen cavorting about and it is assumed they are Mij's sprogs. It's not enough. I was devastated.
I was surprised they were showing that to today's generation of impressionable children. Maybe they've edited the ending?
I would compare seeing this film as a small child, to putting on a video of "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" at a toddlers' party.
But even this isn't anywhere near as upsetting. At least the people killed in TTCM are all really, really annoying Americans. What we're talking about in ROBW is a lovely, playful, friendly otter who never did any harm to nobody.