Paul Knights

A charming portrait of a lovely character. I thoroughly enjoyed watching this one hour human interest documentary - captured beautifully and compassionately by young film maker Lizzie MacKenzie. Her lovely tone and gentle voice asking the bare minimum of questions on camera and letting old Ken answer them in his own time. Plenty of atmospheric cutaway shots from close ups of Ken's weathered fingers as he struggles to tie the hook to the fishing line, to the dripping icicles, to washing his jumper in the snow covered bath tub outside, the atmosphere of the place and Ken's lifestyle shone through. Her everyday shots of him chopping wood for his fire to scrambling down to the lake to catch fish... interspersed with well edited voice over from old Ken as he talked about his earlier life from getting savagely beaten up as he left a nightclub in the early 70's and then spending two years wondering the wilderness of British Colombia. Whilst it was at times sad to reflect on how Ken might have been prompted to spend his life in such a lonely independent manner for such a long time following this vicious assault.... it was balanced out by his lovely calm, accepting nature and the way he appeared so genuinely contented with his life and continued enjoying nature and the land around him. His passion for occasionally taking out his old film camera and carefully composing his photos shone through - "..If you ever see anything so beautiful that you can't take it off your mind then you want to tell other people..." Amen