Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #8095 in DVD
• Released on: 2003-09-01
• Rating: Suitable for 15 years and over
• Number of discs: 1
• Formats: PAL, Widescreen
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 96 minutes

Special Features
English
Region 2

Synopsis
Lynne Ramsey's bleak, beautifully photographed debut unflinchingly portrays life in a Glasgow housing project during the 1973 garbageworkers strike as seen through the eyes of 12-year-old James Gillespie (William Eadie, in a soulful debut). As the film opens, James is playing with a friend near a filthy canal behind the projects when his friend tragically falls into the water and drowns. James chooses not to tell anyone that he saw the boy die, knowing that he will be implicated. This secret, along with his increasing lack of communication with his drunken football-loving father, causes James to become increasingly withdrawn, fantasizing about his family moving to a newly constructed apartment complex at the city limits on the edge of a beautiful, golden field of grain. As the garbage piles up and rats take up residency around the complex as if they were new tenants, James finds temporary solace in his friendships with Kenny, an odd boy who loves animals, and Margaret Anne, a teenage misfit who lets the local boys use her body as they wish.
While undeniably grim, RATCATCHER manages to combine unusually rich imagery and spare use of dialogue to create a realistic portrait of a simultaneously beautiful and cruel world. Punctuated with unexpected humor, Ramsey's film is subtle and rewarding.

Customer Reviews

Maybe you had to be there
I think possibly C Myers just doesn't "get" this film - possibly (and apologies if I'm wrong) thru not having witnessed the events of 70s Britain. Not just for Glasgow was this an appalling period in UK history - almost worse than depression eras before it simply because it promised so much in terms of the "better life" but only for the few. You must take the film as a metaphor for all that was going on at the time. Of course the characters are not fully developed - that was what happened to people like them at that time - no realisation of their full potential. Being under-developed in the film is part of the metaphor, as is the "dreamlike quality" - all these people had was a dream of a better life which was unlikely to be fulfilled. As is the disjointed feel - that was what their lives were - a seies of disjointed events with no direction. And what was the "bike" to do? These kids didn't have nannies or childminders; they looked out for themselves. What she is doing in the film is SURVIVING - that's what it was like. The tale is harrowing because it is a harsh picture of reality as it was then (yes, I WAS there). it is doubly harrowing because so little has changed for so many people. As a secondary school teacher I am dealing on a daily basis some thirty years on with the fall-out of lives such as those portrayed in the rat-catcher. I use the film as a discucssion point at school - horrifically so many of my pupils recognise aspects of their own lives in it.

I rate "The Ratcatcher" highly because it depicts in an artistic yet realistic way, the realities of life then (and sadly life now). Because it is essentially a metaphor, it is much more powerful than "Sweet Sixteen". My pupils would for the most part agree.

And they all get the metaphor.

BRILLIANT
Most definitely poetic and cinematically captivating! It by far exceeds standards of British cinema and conveys a story with style. I did not witness the period of rats and rubbish in the 70's but I found myself still relating to the content. The film is extremely emotive! I give it 8/10.............6 is worth watching!

Sensitive portrayal of urban life
This was a sensitive portrayal of urban family life in the 1970s. The characters were for the most part sympathetic. The film had an almost dreamlike quality, with poetic imagery in the form of the local canal, rats and black dustbin bags. Although the story was essentially a sad one, it was not morbidly sad.