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.

Contrary to some of the other user comments, which try to compare Ramsay to Loach, Tarkovsky, Bresson (though she cites these men as influences) I found Ratcatcher to stand on its own, and have a distinct style unto itself. The narrative seemlessly shifts from fantasy to reality, a characteristic of Ramsay's short films as well. To reduce Ramsay to a filmmaker only dealing with social realism misses the entire point of her film, which is to reconstruct a narrative as it would appear to a young boy plagued with guilt over his involvement with the death of a friend. Ratcatcher soars to levels of the fantastic world some remember from childhood (though not in a sentamental ridiculous way), transcending the stasis of her influences, who were concerned primarily with reality. Her films are not psycho-drama, they are composed in the "slice-of-life" style of some early new wave French Films, but that comparison is limited. If you liked Pixote, George Washington, 400 Blows, Los Olvidados, see their counterpart, it's that good. One of the best films about children you'll ever see.

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.

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.