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Ratcatcher
***
Cinema
Releases - November 12, 1999
Rated on a 4-star
scale. UK/France. Written and directed by Lynne Ramsay. Starring William
Eadie, Tommy Flanagan, Mandy Matthews, Michelle Stewart, Lynne Ramsay Jr,
Leanne Mullen.
The boy wanders onto a bus and steps off at the
end of the line -- not only to a place he's never been, but to a world he
never imagined. A building site sits in the middle of nowhere, every facet
of every house sparkling with newness. Through the window there is awesome,
timeless countryside. It's a far cry from the surroundings he's previously
known.
This incredible scene is pivotal in Lynne Ramsay's
"Ratcatcher". It was the moment when I realised what the movie
was about, began to care for the characters who were trying to break free
and agonised about those who didn't know there was anything to break free
into. The movie takes place in the slums of Glasgow during the mid-1970s'
dustmen's strike. The aforementioned boy, our hero James (William Eadie),
is learning that he can't take being a victim of the poverty trap for much
longer. Nobody should have to put up with an environment of lice-ridden
tenements, rats and dead dogs, where tacky period wallpaper disintegrates
from too many dishevelled items being thrown, and too many cheap cigarettes
smoked.
James and his pseudo-friends hang around by a
canal, deal with family problems and experiment with the escapism of sex,
violence, booze and tobacco. Few of these things are much help. One lad is
fascinated by rats, who may live risky lives and carry disease, but at least
have an advantage over humans in being able to scurry to another habitat
whenever they want. A fantasy sequence in the movie shows rodents flying
to the moon, and colonising it.
Apart from that, "Ratcatcher" is all kitchen-sink
realism. The setting, in terms of both time and place, is incredibly important,
as its atmosphere is one writer-director Ramsay clearly knows inside out.
There is not a shred of production design or photography that lets us know
we're watching a 1990s film set, and the actors, who Ramsay hand-picked over
the course of several months, also have seemingly genuine faces, mannerisms,
interactions. We feel that these are actual people in this horrific rut.
We can't help but care.
Until the ending. The final moments of "Ratcatcher"
not only don't ring true, but are fundamentally indecipherable. Ramsay intercuts
between two surreal conclusions -- one positive, one negative -- but which
is real and which is imagined? Actually, either way is irrelevant, because
the close comes twenty minutes too early, and the story has been left with
more loose ends than a tassel-ridden cowboy jacket.
I'm recommending the picture nonetheless, as a
convincing argument for the school of thought that cinema should strive for
technical realism. I remember a time when the world was like this movie shows
it -- before proleterian neighbourhoods were swamped by shell suits, mobile
phones, Playstations and child molesters. Things were more real back then.
"Ratcatcher" serves as a reminder that they weren't necessarily all that
much better.
COPYRIGHT© 1999 Ian
Waldron-Mantgani
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