A Brilliant Conflict

Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

It is a whirlwind of delight --- attractive actors, stunning couture, spectacular sets and outrageous parties.

Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.

Lynne Ramsay is really quite talented. The playful opening sequence shows off her gifts, but the darkness that awaits seems to be where her true talent lies. A touching horrible tale so saturated in tragedy that I felt almost numb by the end. A better film than intruiging 'Morven Callar' and the excellent 'We Need to Talk About Kevin', she remains a bright light in style and subject.

When I last visited Glasgow I thought the city was a lot more vibrant, respectable even glamorous than the griminess depicted in Ratcatcher.Lynne Ramsay's film is set in 1973 Glasgow where rubbish is being piled up because of the dustbin men strike. There is sordidness in the council tenements, rats, lice, dirty canals, drunken men and feral kids.Twelve year old James (William Eadie) yearns for a world out of this neighbourhood. In fact a bus ride to the edge of a city among fields shows him what is possible, maybe for the first time in the middle of nowhere where a new estate is being constructed he has left the city behind him.James might be no saint himself. His school friend drowned while he was playing with him in the canal. Some of the older kids he hangs around with are bullies, they treat a teenage girl as a plaything. At least James finds some tenderness with her.This is a grim but haunting and poetic film. The story is not told in a straightforward narrative. Ramsay has an eye for visuals which suggests an inspiration from Terrence Malick. A sequence of a mouse going to space tied to a balloon uses music from Badlands. The film also has influences from Ken Loach's Kes and Truffaut's 400 Blows.

Director Lynne Ramsey creates a very haunting drama taking place in Scotland's largest city, Glasgow. It is a hot summer and the trash men are on strike; the garbage bags littering sidewalk breeding grounds for rats. It is 1973, and young teen James(William Eadie)lives in a rundown flat with his Da(Tommy Flanagan), Ma(Mandy Matthews)and sisters eagerly waiting in anticipation of the housing council's permission to move to a newer flat. It is a very depressing time and James watches a friend drown in a fetid canal while play-fighting. His neighbor Kenny(John Miller), who loves gathering rats to put in his make believe circus, is angry blaming James for the death of their school mate. James will spend time and befriend a slightly-older Margaret Anne(Lynne Ramsey Jr.), who is constantly raped by neighborhood hooligans. This is a stark and depressing character driven drama. It is as if the stain of humanity will never fade away. James seems to catch most of his drunken da's anger, as if it is his fault the striking trash collectors are without a job. Two bright spots for the jug-eared lad is his dream of moving out of squaller and his budding love for Margaret Anne. Music by the likes of Eddy Cochrane, The Chordettes and Tom Jones move the story along. Other players: Michelle Stewart, Craig Boner, Mick Maharg and Andrew McKenna.

Ratcatcher utterly surprised me. Not because of the talking, which I hardly understood at all (I'm Austrian), but because of the surprising scarcity of dialogues. I doubt that there was a single situation where any of the protagonists talked for more than five seconds in a row. That's why the movie wasn't that difficult to grasp, as most of the plot was primarily carried by images and stunning shots of William Eadie's character. I guess that there were minutes where no-one actually said a word for a long time - which makes this movie maybe the movie with the least words spoken I've ever seen. Concerning its plot - it's very much reminiscent of Kes. You get a first-hand insight into the bleak and dull existence those kids in Glasgow have to endure. James is suffering from thorough disillusion. The sequences when you actually see him smile - which are two or three maybe - are thus real highlights of the movie. He is the one who bears the emotional burden of the movie. I particularly liked the scene when he was lying on the sofa and his young sister places herself next to him. The other highlight was when he took the bus and found this solitary house and the grain field, where he experienced some kind of relief from his tough life. The ending was ambiguous. I suppose he actually did drown himself - and the last image show his dreams of his family moving away from their bleak existence towards a brighter future - a future he thinks is only possible without him. Just think of the young girl holding the Miro towards the sky - and then you see James' face. And you see him drown again right when the credits start.