Ratcatcher

Lynne Ramsay’s sensational debut about a working-class boy and his lack of social horizons. Tough and warm-hearted at the same time.

A garbage strike in Glasgow in 1973: trash bags are strewn around the working-class neighborhood, rats are everywhere. Twelve-year-old James lives here. He is teased by his siblings and the other children; his father is an alcoholic prone to violence. He is also riven with guilt for being partly responsible for the drowning of another boy. But he has a dream.

Details in extreme close-up, leitmotif technique, flashbacks, the prominent use of music: much of what will come to define Lynne Ramsay’s style is already present here. And for all her proximity to her characters, she never quite allows us to feel at home in their world. Because they don’t feel it themselves.

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