Otter 501 (Bob Talbot, 2012): USA

Reviewed by Gustav Orvefors. Viewed at the Santa Barbara film festival.

Otter 501 is a heartwarming Documentary about the difficulties the Otters have to survive in the Monterey Bay coastline. The film brings up the problem in a entertaining way, showing how beutiful the Otters really are, and how important they are for the ecologic balance in nature. The documentary is both beautiful and thoughtful, with alot of majestic scenes of the wilderness and a easygoing story.

In a storm a sea otter pup is separated from her mother, and a young woman “Katie Pofahl” founds it alone on the shore. She decides to learn more about the small animals, so she volunteers to help out with the protection of otters. For several mounths we follow Katie, and how she learns more and more about the otters and how she grows closer and closer to them.

I had a hard time taking Otter 501 serious. The fact that a big part of the film was through facebook made me roll my eyes in disbelief. The acting from Katie was kind of cheesy and excessive and the movie lost alot just because of that. Sometimes I wondered if the film is mainly for a younger audience, but that wouldn’t make much sence because of the deeper message. In my opinion should the documentary have been less story and more beutiful shoots of the nature and more fact about the otters. At least that would have been interesting.

But I shouldn’t complain to much, at least Otter 501 made me think about the main point of the film, and that’s why they made the documentary in the first place. And the film have some great moments, especially the scene under water when you could see the starfishes was moving in high speed. That scene and some other made me think of how much there really is to the world.

Otter 501 made a bold attempt to mix documentary with film, but it didn’t really work for me. The only reason you should see the movie is if you like to know more about the environment, or of course if you like to watch cute little otters.