Film Review - The Golden Spurtle
Images courtesy of Umbrella Entertainment.
The Golden Spurtle is a documentary about The Golden Spurtle World Porridge Making Championship, an annual competition held in Carrbridge, a small, picturesque village in the Scottish Highlands, since 1994. Watching the film is just as delightful and cosy as it sounds!
A spurtle is a traditional Scottish utensil, typically made from wood and designed specifically for stirring porridge. The documentary and competition’s namesake, the ‘golden spurtle’, refers to the locally handmade first prize; there’s no cash award for the winner. We also meet spurtle-carver Charlie Miller, a retiree who’s the competition’s long-running Porridge Chieftain. His role is to manage the organising committee and oversee the competition.
The film follows the organisation, running and results of the 2023 event. Charlie features throughout the film as we see him working on different aspects of the event.
I found it endearing how he adds his own humour and warmth to the documentary with his witty jokes about Scotland, poems and honest anecdotes about ageing. This is something the film does really well: it showcases the personalities involved in the competition.
We’re introduced to a revolving door of quirky characters in the film, mostly through short piece-to-camera and on-the-go interviews (whilst the competitors are making porridge). We meet the organising committee, the judges, the dishwashers, local residents, and local and international contestants. I have to applaud the film's art direction and cinematography because all interviews are so thoughtfully framed with backdrops and camera angles that complement each person’s profile.
There’s the local artist contestant in her art-adorned home with wooden walls and windows revealing Carrbridge’s lush greenery outside, while she shares her own ceramic works that reference folk tales – right when her lovely, vintage cuckoo clock goes off! It’s quite a contrast to when we meet the younger taco chef contestant from Sydney while he’s feeding his beloved cat Katsu in his modern, suburban home.
There’s a two-time winner who shows us her ‘porridge treasures’ in her English home with beautiful tea sets and floral prints, a fungus and mycology research coordinator in a giant greenhouse complete with its own pond, and a local railway man in uniform at the Carrbridge railway station who cooks his porridge ‘the Scottish way, with water’. This is just scratching the surface – there are a lot more characters, porridge insights and quotable lines in this film!
Stylised, Wes Anderson-y tableau shots and vivid colours are used consistently throughout the film. I felt drawn in by the natural beauty of Carrbridge: the verdant greenery and tall trees blowing in the woods, the village’s famous stone bridge – the oldest stone bridge in the Highlands, the traditional Scottish stone houses and the sense of community you see in the town as they come together to dress the Village Hall for the competition and with the flags of the competitors’ countries.
As well as getting to know the characters and their charms, you get a real feel for Carrbridge. It is almost a character in itself. This feels very fitting, as the competition was first conceived as a way to attract more tourism and put the town on the map.
I laughed, cried and learnt a lot about this village – and porridge – from this film. At the heart of the World Porridge Making Championships is the Carrbridge community. With its community-focused theme and beautiful village visuals, The Golden Spurtle documentary makes this legacy proud.
I have since been cooking porridge a lot more at home, the Scottish way.
4/5 stars.
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The Golden Spurtle is screening in cinemas now. For tickets and more info, click here.