Review of Ratcatcher (1999) by Stella D — 26 Nov 2008

With all the talk generated over Catherine Hardwick's box office record success with the teeny-bopping vampire love story Twilight, that and the recent reccomendation by a friend of the wonderful Moven Callar, I thought what better a time to revisit the films of a truly brave and important female filmmaker - Lynne Ramsay. If you haven't heard of her, that's not surprising. Both of her so-far completed films have gone by the wayside. She was slated to adapt and direct Alice Sebold's novel 'The Lovely Bones,' but was fired by the producers. I suspect because they saw her films after realizing she was not one to compromise her artistic sensibilities. Now that film is to be directed by Lord of the Rings helmer Peter Jackson. She's currently slated to adapt a different novel, We Need to Talk about Kevin.

Ramsay made her directorial debut in 1999 with a meandering and gritty down to earth grinder of a film, Ratcatcher. It went widely under seen and insanely under appreciated. Its lack of a clear linear storyline and nearly indecipherable Scottish accents turned most viewers off. Thankfully Criterion got a hold of the film and gave it their treatment and kept it alive.

Set in 1970s Glasgow during a garbage strike, Ratcatcher follows the life of James, a young lad living in the slummy working class flats with his family. Each seems to be well meaning, but their lives are tormented by the building piles of garbage, the crippling living and working conditions, and that brings out the nasty in people. The family has hope that they'll be able to move into the new public flats, but in the meantime must maintain life amid the rats and the garbage.

In the film's opening scene, James meets with a friend along the canal behind the flats. They play fight in the water, but the other boy is accidentally drowned and James runs. When asked by other kids if he knew the boy, he says no. Though that moment is only referred to explicitly throughout the rest of the film, it serves as a heavy and constant undertone in young James psyche and all the events which are to follow. There is no escape from his guilt, framing the ever slimming hopes of a better life.

There is only so much that can be said about the plot of the film. James tries to move on but finds reminders everywhere. The ever present activity by the canal with older friends, and another friend who nearly drowns there but is saved by James' drunk father, perhaps an act of savior that is doomed to exacerbate and accentuate poor James' own earlier act of failure.

He chums with cruel spirited older boys, and a neighbor, Kenny, obsessed with catching rats. That boy's also obsessed with his snow white pet mouse for a while, until he lets him fly away in a brilliant sequence. James is happiest spending time with a slightly older girl who treats him with kindness, friendship, and maybe even more. She is the target of sexual and deviant torment by the other boys around the flats, torment that eventually grows more tormenting to James than even she.

Ratcatcher is a dark film. It's brewed and steeped in the drab and harsh realities of a life doomed to coping at the best of times, and being stomped on at the worst. A life where death could ostensibly be viewed as a success. It is a terribly sad film, yet somehow manage to avoid being entirely depressing. It is a grinding portrait of social malfeasance. Of the lives we've doomed, simply by having them born into it.

Ramsay catches this with a masterful eye, and paints it out in the strokes of an artist. Her evocation of life in garbage ridden Glasgow is stunning. The film is on solid realist ground, but does not let that hinder its fancies for visual and sensual expressions.

While Catherine Hardwick may now hold the title of the highest grossing female helmed production in Twilight, it is especially important to highlight the great artistry of female filmmakers. What Hardwicke has accomplished is certainly important, and should turn some studio heads to recognize that females are every bit as capable of successful filmmaking as males, but for myself it just seems more important to highlight the truly great artistic achievements in filmmaking by females. Those women such as Larissa Shepitko, Agnes Varda, Jane Campion, Barbara Kopple, and Lynne Ramsay, just to name but a few, of course.