All the praise heaped on this film puzzles me. I found the cinematography to be beautiful, but the storyline, once established, droned on and on with no end in sight. That might have been the point, however. One positive is although it contains the stereotypical drunk father, at least he wasn't physically abusive. You are left with a general sense of pity for many of the characters, but the mood is passive. I'm not sure if I'm supposed to be appalled by the poverty or accepting of it. I think the director failed to connect the characters, and in turn kept the audience from connecting. The ending was a leaden mishmash of fantasy and overt symbolism. Not recommended. I understand that this film is semi-biographical, but I felt left out in the cold.

This film about growing up urban in Scotland is masterful in its depiction of life as an unstoppable downward spiral of degradation, social entropy and anomie ending in slime, criminality and despair. Every step of this short and brutal downfall is lovingly illustrated with scenes of filth, coarseness, profanity, idiocy, moral turpitude, ignorance, poverty, intoxication and vermin. It's quite a ride, even though it rather shamelessly borrows a Carl Orff theme that was already made famous by its use in Terrence Malick's "Badlands" for its score and reproduces Mike Leigh's naturalistic atmospheres without the humour and a single glimmer of hope. Should the viewer feel like cleansing his palate after this ordeal, may I recommend two films on the same subject, the poetry and terrors of childhood? They are just as rewarding but without the vomit-inducing sadism and body fluids. They are:(1) "The Steamroller and The Violin"/"Katok i skripka", 1960, URSS, a 42-minute student film by Andrei Tarkovsky, one of the loveliest films ever put together on planet Earth (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0053987/), and(2) "The Children Are Watching Us"/"Bambini ci guardano", Vittorio DeSica's first collaboration with neo-realist screenwriter Cesare Zavattini, 1943, an almost forgotten classic, finally on Criterion DVD (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0034493/).

This is a powerful movie about a boy who is relentlessly ground down by the oppressive circumstances of his life. Poverty, neglect and rejection are his personal environment, set within a larger picture of crumbling social structures and economic chaos. Other characters do reach out to him in various ways, including sexual, but their overtures, as mostly everyone's, are rooted in their own needs. The protagonist has learned from hard experience to be suspicious of the self-involved people around him, so he's unable to respond to any of these "half a loaf" offers. Even the fact that this is a movie IN English that requires English SUBTITLES contributes to the sense of alienation. This film is drama, not entertainment. Of course I can't tell you about the ending, but I will say that I had to rewind the tape and watch it again just to make sure I had really seen what I'd seen. I won't soon forget "Ratcatcher."

Ratcatcher tells the story of a young boy, James, on a Glasgow estate, wracked with guilt over a friend's death and faced with a future that seems already mapped out for him.Set against bin man strikes in the 1970's, with black rubbish bags strewn across the grim urban wasteland and rowdy bullies always around the corner, Ramsey's film creates a bleak vision of this era for a boy's upbringing. The film follows James and observes the relationship with his parents and peers and how he creates hope when there appears little.The visions of hope can be seen throughout, but only, like James, if you take the effort to explore or look closely; the field, the bus driver, the medal, the teenage girl, the shoes, the glasses, the mouse etc. Ratcatcher contains some super images, my favourite being James upon the sofa (I won't spoil it, watch it and see).If you're really into this type of bleakness, why not create a double bill with "Young Adam"? It may not appear the most cheery of films, but you can't help caring about James and sharing some hope.