Ratcatcher is the first feature-length film by British female director Lynn Ramsay. Since being released in 1999, it has won lots of awards at various film festivals, because of not only the delicacy of its shooting but also its profound reflection on British society in the 1970s.

Fig 1 The death of James' friend 0:06:33

This contemporary film’s realistic focus on the working class inherits the spirit of social realism in the British New Wave in the 1950s and 1960s. At that time, on the one hand, the British economy was devastated by the war, the middle class was weakened and the working class appealed to a fair and stable social environment (Winson, 2013, p. 22). On the other hand, the success of the Soviet Union has raised people’s doubts about the capitalist system. Hence, the image of the “angry young men” began to appear in literature and film, usually showing the discontent of the working class with class society (Luo, 2019, p. 24). The films of this period are known as British New Wave and social realism, or working-class realism from the content, poetic realism from style.

Furthermore, the Labor party, which represented the interest of the working class, began to dominate in parliament, and strongly promoted nationalization and welfare policies. However, after some degree of economic recovery, the defects of the welfare system unveiled gradually and led to stagflation (Winson, 2013, pp. 5-6). Until 1975, Margaret Thatcher of the Conservative party came to power and advocated neoliberalism, cutting welfare spending, and encouraging market competition (Scott-Samuel et al, 2014, p. 54). The British economy was boosted but also brought a widening of the class division and the decline in the living quality of the working class. Therefore, in the 1980s, British social realism was revived and lots of films focusing on the working class appeared again (Shafer, 2001, p. 9). The story of Ratcatcher happens in 1973 and reflects the life of the working class at the end of the welfare society, many of the details in the film are closely related to the social background at that time.

l Laborers and Rats

Rats is perhaps a metaphor for laborers. The welfare system provides enough living security and seriously discourages the laborers’ enthusiasm for work. The traditional virtue of labor is replaced by the lazy pleasure of consumerism (Zhang & Lin, 2018, p. 40). In the film, James’ father is a representative of the working class, sleeps all day instead of working, indulges in TV, beer, and football. His only wish is for the committee to allocate a new house.

Fig 2 James' father is watching TV 0:19:24

Moreover, any attempt to reduce welfare will cause public discontent, like this cleaning workers’ strike. The garbage in the streets and the television news reports all hint at this situation.

Fig 3 The report on the strike 0:12:47

Under this circumstance, tax revenue falls but welfare spending stays high. The government is in a passive position and the national economy is in a downturn. The working class does not create social value but lives in the burrow of the welfare system like the rat. The strike in the film leads to a chaotic community where rats live with people, implying they are homogenous, dirty, poor, and living at the bottom. The ratcatcher is referring to the coming Thatcher reforms, to the abolition of the welfare state and the elimination of the welfare-dependent working class. At the end of the film, the army, representing the government, is deployed to clean up rats and rubbish, while residents shout abuse upstairs.

Fig 4 The army is cleaning up the rats 1:20:02

l Males and Soccer

As a female director, Ramsay pays deep attention to gender identity. The identity of the male is lost at that time. When livelihoods depend on welfare, the role of men as the source of income is weakened. By contrast, when the center of life moves from society, the public sphere, to family, the private sphere, consumerism overwhelms the culture of the working-class, the status of the female is promoted (Zhang & Lin, 2018, p. 40). Therefore, for the male, on the one hand, they feel a sense of marginalization in this loss of identity, so they try to acquire a sense of self-satisfaction through a kind of arbitrary, which includes contempt for the female and arrogance towards their juniors, such as James’ father slaps his wife when drunk or the teenagers humiliate Margaret and tease James and Kenny.

Fig 5 The teenagers are teasing James 0:31:44

On the other hand, soccer, as a sport that relies on unity and physical strength, becomes the last symbol of working-class culture, and the spiritual sustenance of the male. In the film, boys play soccer in the street, James’ father persistently gives James a pair of soccer shoes as a gift, and even the teenagers throw Kenny’s mouse back and forth like soccer.

Fig 6 The teenagers are teasing mouse 0:50:00

l Children and Water

In the Ratcatcher, children may be more like “angry young men”. The story is narrated from the perspective of James, a child. Compared with the frustration of adults, children’s psychological activities are more complicated. Vitality is a child’s nature, which is suppressed by a negative social atmosphere. The desire of young men to break through the social hierarchy by working hard is limited by a lazy welfare system, like carrying the death of a friend.

Fig 7 James suicides in the canal 1:27:55

Water is perhaps a metaphor for the welfare system. Water can either support life or deprive it. The bathtub full of water brings James happiness, but the endless sewage in the canal drowns his friend like an overdose of welfare, which is gently but fatal, so neither James nor his friend struggles in the canal.

Fig 8 James and Margaret play in the bath 0:59:57

Therefore, children are the only ones having hopes for the future, because the future is an escape from reality, which is the origin of the poetic element. The suburban house for James and the moon for Kenny, are all the places with poetic background music, and without water.

Fig 9 No water in suburb house 0:40:51

Furthermore, under this repression, children are eager to grow up and have a voice, so they imitate the elders. James tried to join the teenagers and control his sisters. Whereas, when the suburban house is locked and Margaret is still humiliated by the teenagers, James realizes his helplessness and gives up and suicides in the canal. But for Kenny, after being rescued from the canal, he joins the camp of ratcatcher.

Fig 10 Kenny is catching rats 1:24:25

Ratcatcher is a calm and slow film. What Ramsay expresses is not simple criticism of Thatcherism or sympathy on the working-class, but the two-sidedness of policies and their great impact on the public. After two decades of Thatcher's policies, it is worth wondering what Britain is and about to face.

Word Count: 1080

（excluding 84 words on remarks of figures）

l Reference List (APA)

Calderwood, A. (Producer). Ramsay, L. (Screenwriter/ Director). (1999). Ratcatcher [Motion Picture]. Britain: British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC).

Luo, X. (2019). 论英国新浪潮电影的“厨房水槽”现实主义美学特征 [the Realistic Aesthetic Characteristics of "Kitchen Sink" in British New Wave Films]. Journal of Guizhou University (Art Edition), 33(2), 22-26. doi: 10.15958/j.cnki.gdxbysb.2019.02.004

Scott-Samuel, A., Bambra, C., Collins, C., Hunter, D. J., McCartney, G., & Smith, K. (2014). The impact of Thatcherism on health and well-being in Britain. International Journal of Health Services, 44(1), 53-71. Retrieved from JSTOR Journals. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/45140692

Shafer, S. C. (2001). An overview of the working class in British feature film from the 1960s to the 1980s: from class consciousness to marginalization. International Labor and Working-Class History. (59), 3-14. Retrieved from JSTOR Journals. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/27672706

Winson, A. (2013). Social realism of British New Wava “Left” films: The working-class border character. (Master’s Thesis) Available from ProQuest Dissertations and Theses Database.

Zhang, J., & Lin X. (2018). 20世纪八九十年代英国工人阶级电影特征 [The characteristics of working class in British working class films in the 1980s and 1990s]. Movie Literature, (10), 39-41. doi: 10.3969/j.issn.0495-5692.2018.10.013

This blog post will engage with the main themes in the popular reception of the film Ratcatcher (Ramsay, 1999), using as a sample 25 user reviews and comments from the Chinese review-aggregation website Douban, selected on the basis of their length and complexity.

One of the most frequently encountered opinions, 10 of the reviews that I examined interpreted the film from the perspective of teenagers. They think this film depicts the inner world of a depressed, lonely, and sensitive teenager in a realistic way, and reflects the poverty and unbearable life of working-class life in Britain through the vision of a child. In particular, users write of ‘the growing pains of a teenager at the bottom of the pile’. Most people are saddened by the desperate emotional rendering of the film – a story of a traumatized teenager's confusion and sadness in the face of society and the world. For viewers of Douban, the film has reaped the most accolades for its portrayal of British society. Similarly frequent are views about the director’s shooting technique and cinematography, with users often remarking on Ramsay’s solid work as a photographer, revelling in the close-ups and contrasts between the movements and stillness of the shots in the film’s scene.

The film does reflect the oppression and suffering of the British working class through the eyes of the child, James, and many social contradictions are further revealed through James’s interactions with his family and friends. Although Chinese audiences are immersed in an atmosphere of despair and sadness, in my viewpoint, there is still a sense of redemption and hope in some scenes.

In the Ratcatcher, the story is set in the 1970s during a general strike by rubbish workers in the Glasgow area, where the streets were littered with rubbish, houses were in disrepair and rivers were muddy. Like many films typified by the British Kitchen sink Drama, Ratcatcher exposes the grim characteristics of society. It focuses on the lives of poor communities and the impact of poverty on families, and shows the depression and powerlessness of working-class life (Williams,1977; Higson, 1984). But Ramsey largely rejects institutional context and history, abandoning traditional political drives in favour of a more symbolic, suggestive, obscure narrative (Carlota, 2016). Thus, the Ratcatcher can be seen as a film of poetic realism and viewers can feel its hints of hope and redemption in scenes of despair.

Figure 1: The city streets are full of rubbish

Kenny's Snowball seems to be an amalgamation of destruction and hope. James has to endure the violence of those older than him but also wants to protect this cute little mouse. In the next series of shots, which are James's fantasy, the mouse flies to the moon in a red balloon and joins other mouse companions. This fantasy is also James's longing, which also represents the innocence and hope of children. As Aitken (2011) points out, Ramsey's use of fantasy techniques belies some of the tones of realism and makes surprises to create a form of poetic realism. Because at this point, James hopes to find his true playmate, who will no longer have to endure violence and pain. Just like rats fleeing from the earth, he wants to escape this awful community. Thus, poetically, the Ratcatcher gives the audience a child's perspective of how the underclass grows from the rubbish and how James releases his guilt and pain in his fantasies. James' fantasies seem to escape the mire of life and this moment of innocent simplicity contrasts with the dreary tone of the film, which makes the audience realise that these underclass teenagers still harbour hope, only to slowly fade away in the struggle of reality.

Figure 2: James’ fantasy of Snowball flying to the moon

If the fantasy of a snowball flying to the moon represents the innocence and hope of a child, James in the wheat field has a sense of redemption in the film's desperate and heavy tone. The golden fields of wheat are a stark contrast to the dirty canals and rubbish-strewn city streets, where James can run freely through them without suffering violence or pain. In this poetic scene, James steps through the window and jumps into the wheat field. And at the same time, the cheerful and melodious music brings the audience to the romantic world of the child. Here he fantasizes about having a new house built in a field, which is also James' hope. The Ratcatcher seems to set up a 'paradise' in which the hope of society is rediscovered in the children’s vision.

Figure 3: James in the wheat field

Sadly, at the end of the film, James is unable to cope with the growing pains in a society of inequality and despair, and he chooses to die. However, the scenes immediately following add some imaginative warmth as he and his family arrive in the wheat field carrying belongings with the smile on their face, where their new home has been built. But they are still framed beyond the window, which seems to suggest their isolation from real life. After this scene, there is still a grey scene in which James sinks into the dirty river. This is a combination of landscape and narrative; thus, the dialectic of illusion and disillusionment is carried out, from the good mess into the bad mess (Trotter, 2008). Moreover, this tragic ending seems to hint at the disillusionment of James’s hope, but some pauses in the scenes, such as the pauses in the shot as James sinks and the pause in the running through the wheat field, still give the audience a powerful sense of redemption.

Figure 4: James’s fantasy of moving to a new house

Figure 5: James sinks into the canal

In sum, Ratcatcher is a poetic realist film that places individual confusion and social trauma in the scenes of despair and sadness through the eyes of children. However, the film leaves room for hope and redemption for the children, preserving them between fantasies and camera pauses.

Words: 1013

Reference list:

Aitken, S. C. (2007). Poetic child realism: Scottish film and the construction of childhood. Scottish Geographical Journal, 123 (1), 68-86.

Higson, A. (1984). Space, Place, Spectacle. Screen25 (4/5), 2-21.

Larrea, C. (2016). Ratcatcher. Senses of Cinema, 80, 1–5.

Ramsay, L. (Screenwriter/ Director). (1999). Ratcatcher[Motion picture]. France: Pathé Pictures International

Trotter, D. (2008). Lynne Ramsay’s “Ratcatcher”: Towards a Theory of Haptic Narrative. Paragraph, 31(2), 138–158.

Williams, R. (1977). A Lecture on Realism. Screen18 (1), pp.61-74

这是一个容易在回忆里退色的夏日午后，东中街明晃的太阳下，脑中阴凉的潮水泛起。想起这部电影。 70年代的夏天，苏格兰的格拉斯哥。垃圾工人罢工，垃圾袋侵入了门前的领地与人们的生活。大人们忙碌生计，或许做着搬进新房的美梦。孩童在恶臭的池塘边混乱垃圾堆上玩耍。混混叼着香烟，嘴角弯起嘲弄的笑，近视的女孩乖从地褪去衣服。傻子幻想他的雪球白鼠能飞上月球，在那里愉快地繁衍生息。James 是一个掌扣在此般氛围中生长的孩子。对这一切有着似懂非懂的眼神和忧郁的天真。有对玩伴意外死亡的阴影。有与同一屋檐下父母姐妹的疏离。对傻孩子的友善。对安妮温暖的向往。偷拿了父亲口袋里的钱，搭上莫名其妙的公车，去探寻自己的小小出口——彼岸某地，窗外一望无际的麦田。远离肮脏污秽的城镇，远离病态阴郁的现实。