Ratcatcher

I recently saw this movie & found it quite powerful. The acting was very good, especially the young boy playing the lead. Everything was very realistic, probably more than I would have wanted to see. I guess foreign art films show a lot more skin & shocking scenes than do American movies. Regardless, I found the movie very interesting & did enjoy it to a degree. But I do think I would have trouble recommending it to some of my friends.

"Ratcatcher" is a fairly auspicious debut for a young director. Lynne Ramsay has a powerful command of the visual aspects of filmmaking (dare I say it – approaching the poetic images of Tarkovsky) but her narrative authority is a lot less notable. This is a film in the manner of "Kes" but without the true humanity that that film had in spades. "Kes" is a masterpiece of social-realist humanism because the element of hope is never obvious but is always apparent; I think "Rosetta" is similar in this regard, too. But in recent Scottish cinema, in particular, there seems to be a masochist pleasure in dwelling on representing the worst kinds of poverty and despair, merely to serve a sensationalist agenda. In this respect I'm referring to films like "Small Faces", "Stella Does Tricks" and to a lesser degree "Trainspotting" (a film with other benefits overshadowing its gleeful focus on abject misery). This is an aspect of "Ratcatcher" which soon becomes wearying through the constancy of its emphasis – the images of garbage, vermin, filth and indigence becomes all consuming. But with that said, Ramsay's aesthetic approach is always interesting and at times incredibly poetic and beautiful. Some scenes of whimsical fantasy may seem laboured but they do lighten the load of the film's relentless social-realist agenda.

One of the best British films of the nineties, Ratcatcher is a powerful evocation of the uncertainty and surreal nature of childhood. The film also has something to say about family relationships, death, and the toll poverty takes on people (in this case, in the Glasgow of the seventies).

Although the film could be criticised for being fairly slow-paced, I think this is entirely missing the point. The film is more about atmosphere than a linear plot, and the lingering, intriguing glimpses it offers of the young character's life will stay in your memory like a particularly vivid dream.

I expect great things of Lynne Ramsay in the future.

Well it's hard to say I loved a film like this, with so much darkness in the scenes and darkness in the script. And yet I did love this little dusky descent into childhood.

The waters of the hungry canal, ominous and omnipresent are set off nicely against the clearer, redemptive waters of baths throughout this film. William Eadie as James is tremendous throughout, most especially in his scenes with young John Miller's Kenny.

Unlike Mike Leigh's "All or Nothing" which I recently saw, this film I think had more than a little leavening in its bleak peak at the underclass. Despite rarely going ten minutes without a strong feeling of apprehension washing over me, there were enough warm flashes of affection to make this feel more like we were seeing people, and not statistics brought to life.

I'm not sure how Lynne Ramsay did it, but whenever the kids laughed, it felt genuine. It would have been interesting to be on the set. The interchanges between James and his Da made me think of animals, like a pack of lions and the eldest male just cannot do right by his father. Of course the father is flawed here, but thankfully it is not one of those television sitcom Dad's...devoid of any redemptive features.

The whole cast was tremendous really...from Tommy Flanagan's scarred sweet Da to the four schoolboys of the apocalypse to Lynne Ramsay Jr's transparent purity. Through the murkiness of the film, we can see the hope glimmering just below the surface, you only hope those characters in the film's flow can see it as well.

If you feel like I do that sorrow is an inescapable element to this world, but not one to be rinsed off and left far away from our dreams, cinematic and otherwise, I highly recommend you see this film. From the trajectory of Ramsay, Sr's shorts included on the DVD (and her take on Morvern Callar) I look forward, albeit with apprehension still, to her next work.

8/10

Who are these people saying that RATCATCHER is "pretentious art-house crap" ?? I suppose what they want is just good IL' downhome Hollywood swill? Don't they pay any attention at all to things like lovely cinematography, fine writing, and careful pacing? RATCATCHER is a beautiful movie, though hard to watch because of the desperate conditions of its main characters. It's full of worrisome situations and a complicated storyline that sticks with you for days. It has qualities of both compression and mystery, much like well-crafted poetry has compared to prose. Don't believe the whiners about this movie - it's NOT pretentious, it's inclusive and generous, and though it doesn't provide us with an easy let's-have-popcorn-and-watch-Schwarzenegger-blow-things-up kind of entertainment, it's well-crafted, well-written, beautifully shot, and worth watching and thinking about.