Ratcatcher

AMG AllMovie Guide:

Ratcatcher

Top

Home > Library > Entertainment & Arts > Movies

Plot

Lynne Ramsay's debut feature Ratcatcher is a gritty but often lyrical portrait of a boy growing up on the wrong side of the Scottish tracks. James (William Eadie) is a 12-year-old coming of age in a rough working-class section of Glasgow. Something of a misfit, James has only two close friends, Margaret Anne (Leanne Mullen), an older girl whose need to be loved often leads her into ill-advised sexual episodes with the neighborhood boys, and Kenny (John Miller), a half-bright kid who loves animals but isn't sure what went wrong when he tried to send his pet mouse into space. One day, James gets into a fight with another boy near a canal that runs through town. James accidentally knocks the boy into the water and he drowns; James is too scared to tell anyone, but the incident weighs heavily on him, adding further tension to an already strained relationship with his alcoholic father. Lynne Ramsay's previous short films won awards at the Cannes Film Festival, which led to Ratcatcher's being screened in the "Un Certain Regard" series at Cannes in 1999. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

Review

For her very first feature, director Lynne Ramsay found herself the recipient of an obscene amount of positive press from European critics, so much so that a backlash was inevitable. So it's a relief to report that despite the hype, pro and con, her grim coming-of-age tale Ratcatcher remains a singular moviegoing experience, the kind of film made by a person who composes every shot as if it were her last. Fusing a gritty, kitchen-sink realist drama -- the kind the U.K. film industry has been producing since The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner -- to a haunting, poetic visual style, Ramsay is able to create something uniquely her own. Free of the flash common to turn-of-the-millennium British directors (see Guy Ritchie), Ramsay sketches in details about her main characters in an intuitive, breathtaking manner. Though there is a semi-conventional narrative, tethered to the unreliable point-of-view of a 12-year-old boy, Ratcatcher is much more interested in memory, perception, and fantasy, and how these forces can filter and distill a very real, bleak existence. If anything, Ramsay's debut is reminiscent of Terence Davies' similarly impressionistic first film Distant Voices, Still Lives -- in her protracted use of pop songs, her painterly use of color, and her anti-nostalgic approach to the period piece in general -- but with a major difference: It's not nearly as stifling. ~ Michael Hastings, Rovi

Cast

William Eadie - James
Tommy Flanagan - Da
Mandy Matthews - Ma
Michelle Stewart - Ellen
Lynne Ramsay Jr. - Anne Marie

Leanne Mullen - Margaret Anne; John Miller - Kenny; Jackie Quinn - Mrs. Quinn

Credit

Peter Gallagher - Associate Producer, Gillian Berrie - Casting, Bertrand Faivre - Co-producer, Nick McCarthy - First Assistant Director, Lynne Ramsay - Director, Lucia Zucchetti - Editor, Sarah Radclyffe - Executive Producer, Andrea Calderwood - Executive Producer, Rachel Portman - Composer (Music Score), Alwin Küchler - Cinematographer, Richard Flynn - Sound/Sound Designer, Lynne Ramsay - Screenwriter, Thomas Townend - Second Unit Director Of Photography, Thomas Townend - Second Unit Camera, Thomas Townend - Still Photographer

Previous:	Ratboy (1986 Film), Ratbag Hero (1987 Film)
Next:	Ratchet (1996 Film), Rate It X (1985 Film)

Ratcatcher (film)

Top

Home > Library > Miscellaneous > Wikipedia

Ratcatcher
DVD cover
Directed by	Lynne Ramsay
Produced by	Gavin Emerson
Written by	Lynne Ramsay
Starring	Tommy Flanagan William Eadie
Music by	Rachel Portman
Cinematography	Alwin H. Kuchler
Editing by	Lucia Zucchetti
Release date(s)	12 November 1999 (UK) 13 October 2000 (US)
Running time	94 minutes
Country	Scotland
Language	English, Scots
Budget	N/A
Box office	N/A

Ratcatcher is a 1999 film written and directed by Lynne Ramsay. It is her debut feature film and was screened in the Un Certain Regard section at the 1999 Cannes Film Festival.^[1]

The film won its director numerous awards including the Carl Foreman Award for Newcomer in British Film at the BAFTA Awards, the Sutherland Trophy at the London Film Festival and the Silver Hugo for Best Director at the Chicago International Film Festival.

Ratcatcher never received a wide cinematic release. It was released on DVD by the Criterion Collection.

Contents

1 Overview
2 Plot
3 Cast
4 References
5 External links

Overview

Ratcatcher is set in Glasgow, 1973. The city, despite its Victorian grandeur, has some schemes with the poorest housing conditions in western Europe, such as no running hot water, no bathing facilities and no indoor toilet. The city is mid-way through a major re-development program, demolishing these schemes and re-housing the tenants in new modern estates. The problems in these schemes are somewhat compounded by the binmen going on strike, creating an additional health hazard and a breeding ground for rats. The main character, James, is a 12-year old boy, growing up in one of these schemes, which is gradually emptying, as the re-housed tenants move out. James, with the rest of his family, patiently waits to be re-housed.

Plot

The film opens focused upon James' friend Ryan Quinn, being forced to put on his wellington boots to go to visit his father. He wants to play with James instead and runs off while his mother is not looking. He meets James at the canal and during some rough-house play he is drowned, clearly with James bearing much of the blame.

James lives with his two sisters, one older, one younger and his mum and dad. His dad is an alcoholic womaniser.

The film follows the sensitive James as he tries to come to terms with his guilt, and make sense of the insensitive aspects of his environment. His one escape comes when he takes a bus to the end of the line and ends up in a rural environment where a new housing estate is under construction. He explores the half-built house, and wonders in awe at its view from the kitchen window: of an expansive field of wheat reaching to the horizon. In a scene central to the film he climbs through the window and escapes into the blissful freedom of the field.

James befriends a girl whose glasses have been thrown in the canal and they become close. She is his only other relief from his home environment. She has problems of her own, allowing herself to be abused by the local male gang. The two find comfort in each other's company.

In a memorable scene, his other friend receives a pet mouse as a birthday present. After the gang throw the mouse around to make him "fly" his friend ties the mouse to a balloon and we see it float to the moon where it joins a whole colony of mice frolicking on the moon. The same friend falls in the canal later and is rescued by James' father, making him briefly into a local hero.

The Quinns leave the area, and on the day of leaving Mrs Quinn gives James the pair of brown sandals she had bought for Ryan on the day of his death.

As James watches his family struggle to survive, and as his female friend is sexually used by the local gang, his hope fades and he throws himself in the canal. As he drowns he imagines his family walking across the wheat field to move into his ideal house.

Cast

William Eadie … James Gillespie
Tommy Flanagan … George Gillespie
Mandy Matthews … Anne Gillespie
Michelle Stewart … Ellen Gillespie
Lynne Ramsay Jr. … Anne Marie Gillespie
Leanne Mullen]] … Margaret Anne
Thomas McTaggart - Ryan Quinn

References

^ "Festival de Cannes: Ratcatcher". festival-cannes.com. http://www.festival-cannes.com/en/archives/ficheFilm/id/5373/year/1999.html. Retrieved 2009-10-10.

External links

This 1990s drama film-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.

This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)

Donate to Wikimedia

Help us answer these

How much did a Victorian ratcatcher get paid a year?

Haw much did ratcatchers get paid in Tudor times?

What dose Tybalt you ratcatcher will you walk' mean?

Where can you find information on David Ray who was a ratcatcher barrow in Furness in the early 1900s?

Post a question - any question - to the WikiAnswers community:

Copyrights:

Cite

Wikipedia on Answers.com This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article Ratcatcher (film). Read