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Let me make this clear from the start: if you're the kind of person who likes to go to the movies to relax, feel good, chow down on some popcorn, and forget about the harsh realities of life outside the theater doors, this is not for you.
Not that I don't like a movie every now and then that's pure candy. Lynne Ramsay's Ratcatcher, though, is black licorice at best, or those really sour worms. Do they make candy that comes in the shape of rats? What I'm trying to get at is that this movie is nasty, ugly, and mean. What I haven't figured out yet, though, is why I can't stop thinking about it.
Don't be fooled by the fact that Ratcatcher was produced by the costume drama team Merchant Ivory. The film is set during the Glasgow garbage strike of the 1970s, and the dialect of the working class protagonists is so heavy that somebody wisely decided to subtitle the film. Call it Room with a Pew.
The story follows a quiet kid by the name of James (William Eadie) around town as he deals with a cruel gang of neighborhood boys, a joyless Lolita (Mandy Matthews), his abusive father, and his rat-infested home. And if those ingredients weren't dismal enough, add the drowning of a child in a murky canal, and you have an idea of the emotional barrenness and physical squalor James suffers and which makes up the texture of the movie.
Only now and then, the sun breaks through, or rather, whimsy runs away with Ramsay, and we are treated to direly needed breathers in the form of one mouse's surreal trip to the moon or James' discovery of a new housing project that represents all his hopes for a brighter, rat-free future. And although the audience is held at a safe distance throughout -- Ramsay knows better than to exploit the misery for cheap effects -- the movie's conclusion is touching and memorable.
Ratcatcher is Ramsay's first feature after winning critical accolades at Cannes for her short work. Her background is in photography, and it shows all throughout this movie. As clichéd as it sounds, she manages to wrest a certain kind of haunting beauty and emotional resonance from her wretched subject, and more or less against my will, the film has stayed with me. If you want explosions, babes, and guffaws, don't waste your time and money, but for a film that can creep into your dreams, give Ratcatcher a chance.
