Ratcatcher

A moody, slowly paced look at lower-class Scottish life, much in the same vein as Ken Loach or Mike Leigh. The guilt of young James looms over everything as much as the ubiquitous heaps of garbage, without ever being spoken of outright. Some say the ending is ambiguous, but I think it can really only be interpreted one way (the darker way). The fantasy sequence involving Kenny's mouse is a slight misstep and doesn't fit. Otherwise it's very well-done, but not really my kind of thing.

An incredibly loose film that should've either been grounded more or should've been shorter by almost half its length. All I got from this film was the environment it placed me in and made me sympathise, but that could've been done in forty or fifty minutes. Still, some scenes are better than others and the child acting in this is pretty excellent.

Characters so close and yet so far away from each other. A subtle, little, shiny diamond.

New companionship, a field of wheat, a mouse's odyssey: temporary respites from a complete smothering of poverty, refuse, and guilt. These moments of escape are so warm and affectionate, all the better to break our hearts when it becomes clear that they are ultimately unattainable. Belongs to a short list of great films which embrace truthfully the internal lives of children.

Starting out with a death, then loosely structured as a coming-of-age journey, the film turns out to be a mostly plotless (or at least anti-narrative) portrayal of a boy's life. The natural performances were great. Seen as a feature debut this is a downright miraculous effort from Ramsay who succeeds in combining grubby social realism with an eye-poppingly picture perfect style.

Bleak and dreary, yet somehow, likely through the use of children, Ramsey elicits compassion for and finds beauty in the people that populate this darkened world. The opening sequence is an effective bit of misdirection that makes it much easier to feel for James. And the woman who plays his mother is especially good evoking strength, stability, and softness in an understated performance.

Told through the eyes of a guilt-ridden boy confronted with the reality of adult consciousness, Ratcatcher earns its place among some of the best films in the social realism genre. Virtually plotless, let alone structureless, it visualises a seemingly bleak world in which fleeting moments of hope and happiness manage to shine through. Shades of The 400 Blows, even Gummo, yet wholly unique and indelible in its own right.

One of the most beautiful films made in the 90s. And I'm not just talking about the imagery.

-Snowball's dead, Kenny.- -You killed him...

Ramsay creates poetry out of squalor and desolation. The film is bleak, but never despairing, and for all their hardships and struggles James and his family demonstrate genuine warmth towards each other as they try to make the best of their dire situation. It's simultaneously heartwarming and heartbreaking. The nods to Killer of Sheep and Malick (dig the George Tipton piece) are obvious, to the point I wonder if George Washington isn't essentially a remake of this. Oh, and The 400 Blows as well.

There's no plot, the movie never becomes extremely depressing but has this steady melancholic atmosphere. When it almost becomes too sad, it perks up with a warmish scene, like with the mother dancing with her children. Terrific acting and what an ending.

The feel of this downtrodden, garbage-filled, rotting environment is incredibly well realized despite its short runtime. You really get a sense of the hope these characters harvest in the smallest of intimate pleasures inside- which I think is Ramsay's biggest accomplishment here. The child acting is also just unbelievably good.

Social realism that finds an unparalleled poetry in the tender things that punctuate life's bleakness. By lingering on these moments, Lynne Ramsay humanises and empathises with her characters without liberating them or removing them from their environment. Similar to Kes/the 400 blows, but somehow more involving and lived-in than both.

Somedays, this is the best and only film.

I didn't finish this I may try and finish it someday but for whatever reason this didn't resonate with me. I couldn't help but to be put off by the thick accents for whatever reason.

Captivating like few others.

Childhood romanticism. It looks too melodramatic and perhaps it is, but there is a transcendental quality in that melodrama. Instead of residing in pain, the film wants to look for that pain by turning it into an experience of the outer world, a literal "pathein" in the Greek sense. And as it does that, the childhood agony turns into something existential. The loss is the threshold between childhood and grown up world, the sooner you deal with the loss, the sooner you grow up. Alas!

he flies to the moon... very poetic

So, so bleak but it refuses to give into the bleakness and mope. Hope springs up amongst the grimness, in particular the relationship that forms between James and Margaret Anne which is incredibly moving, that they have no one else they can really trust with their emotions and they find each other, but also so many other moments stand out; running through the field, the mouse flying through space, dancing in the flat, the journey on the bus. And the ending is just sublime.

kind of meandering, miserable, no real focus

Ramsay digs deep to find the poetry and beauty in grim surroundings which elevates this film so far above many others of its type.

I couldn't sit through the whole thing because some scenes of violence were so visceral. (I'm usually not a softie in these cases but idk, there is lots of violence towards animals that I couldn't stomach, so go in prepared to see that.) I see the vision and get the feelings of childhood it is trying to invoke, but it's not quite getting there for me.

really powerful.

shades of BRIGHT FUTURE; the river's the only way out of the trashpile.

complete and beautiful in every sense.

a decent but not great drama, in that it successfully captures a particular scottish place and time, and contains many touching moments despite its bleakness, but also might be a touch unadventurous.

Porra, Ramsay... é pedrada desde o início, se esse filme não for o suficiente para manter o olho na filmografia dela, nada mais o será, mas acredite, se fosse para escolher um cineasta contemporâneo para ser acompanhado, certamente escolheria ela. DVD Versátil Mulheres na Direção.

Superb portrayal of family life in a Glasgow estate. The elliptical visual style captures it all from a child's perspective beautifully, reinforced hugely by the sound design. A very powerful film.

Excellent kitchen sink realist film in the vein of early Loach, combining gritty authenticity with a creative style of editing and often minimalism. Fabulous acting from a cast that is mostly children.

fsd

The film is gorgeous to watch, but Ramsay tries to keep the characters down far too much, that it becomes predictable when the characters will experience some hardship, and it just gets frustrating. Somewhat manipulative, but still worth watching just for the imagery.

So particular with it's detail that from the beginning we don't even expect such a change that will take us into the POV of a brilliant main character. It takes one tragic incidence of real humanity to set path for emotions and compassion that will come. An extremely well done, minimalist film with it's wonder of the youth.

Moody, powerful character study, marvellously acted.

Ratcatcher didn't suck me in like I was hoping for. The time and place are well realized, but it's slow, pretty miserable, and largely plotless.

Lynne Ramsay's debut film is a spectacle. Capturing youth on the fringes of society, her camera shows dirt and a group of kids that are forced to grow up too quickly. They chase rats amount the garbage, when you get the sense that they are also the hosts within a certain dwelling.