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.
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.