Ratcatcher (1999)

Director:

Lynne Ramsay

Writer:

Lynne Ramsay (written by)

Release Date:

12 November 1999 (UK)

Genre:

Drama

Plot:

Glasgow, summer, 1973. Dustmen are striking; bags of garbage add to the blight of council flats and a fetid canal...

Plot Keywords:

Garbage | Strike | Canal | Bus | Bathtub

Awards:

11 wins & 4 nominations

Cast

William Eadie	...	James Gillespie
Tommy Flanagan	...	Da
Mandy Matthews	...	Ma
Michelle Stewart	...	Ellen
Lynne Ramsay Jr.	...	Anne Marie (as Lynne Ramsay Jnr.)
Leanne Mullen	...	Margaret Anne
John Miller	...	Kenny
Jackie Quinn	...	Mrs. Quinn
James Ramsay	...	Mr. Quinn
Anne McLean	...	Mrs. Fowler
Craig Bonar	...	Matt Monroe
Andrew McKenna	...	Billy
James Montgomery	...	Hammy
Thomas McTaggart	...	Ryan
Stuart Gordon	...	Tommy

Also Known As:

Ratcatcher (France)

Runtime:

94 min

Country:

UK | France

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.66 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Certification:

Iceland:12 | Netherlands:16 (original DVD/VHS release) | Netherlands:6 | France:U | Germany:12 | Hong Kong:IIB | Norway:15 | Sweden:11 | UK:15 | Argentina:13

Filming Locations:

Glasgow, Strathclyde, Scotland, UK

Company:

Pathé Pictures International

Trivia:

Although this film is in English, the US release has English subtitles because all the characters speak in a very heavy Scottish accent.

Goofs:

Anachronisms: A radio announcer mentions a football score "Stirling Albion 20, Selkirk 0." That game was played in 1984, not in the early 70's when the film was set.

Quotes:

Kenny: Goodbye, Snowball!

Movie Connections:

References Badlands (1973)

Soundtrack:

Roobarb & Custard

A Glasgow slum boy dreams of escaping

This is the most beguiling British film about childhood since Kes (1969), a slowburning look at days in the life of a small boy on the brink of adolescence. He has adolescent encounters, including an uneasy bath with an unpopular older girl, but he's very much a pre-adolescent child, with all the helplessness and vulnerability that that means. Lynne Ramsay's great strength as a filmmaker is an ability to recreate the world as seen through her characters' eyes. From with the deprivation, the film is set on a housing estate during a binman's strike, she finds moments of real beauty - a joyfully filmed tumble in a hayfield - and strikingly surreal moments, such as a backward boy's pet mouse flying to the moon on a balloon. If Ratcatcher has a forerunner, excepting Ramsay's own award-winning shorts, it is not The Bill Douglas Trilogy, a semi-still life of a Scottish slum boy, which it eclipses completely, but the great hand-crafted films of Lindsay Anderson: This Sporting Life; If..., and O Lucky Man!