Ratcatcher (1998)

Review by All Movie Guide
For her very first feature, director Lynne Ramsay found herself the recipient of an obscene amount of positive press from European critics, so much so that a backlash was inevitable. So it's a relief to report that despite the hype, pro and con, her grim coming-of-age tale Ratcatcher remains a singular moviegoing experience, the kind of film made by a person who composes every shot as if it were her last. Fusing a gritty, kitchen-sink realist drama -- the kind the U.K. film industry has been producing since The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner -- to a haunting, poetic visual style, Ramsay is able to create something uniquely her own. Free of the flash common to turn-of-the-millennium British directors (see Guy Ritchie), Ramsay sketches in details about her main characters in an intuitive, breathtaking manner. Though there is a semi-conventional narrative, tethered to the unreliable point-of-view of a 12-year-old boy, Ratcatcher is much more interested in memory, perception, and fantasy, and how these forces can filter and distill a very real, bleak existence. If anything, Ramsay's debut is reminiscent of Terence Davies' similarly impressionistic first film Distant Voices, Still Lives -- in her protracted use of pop songs, her painterly use of color, and her anti-nostalgic approach to the period piece in general -- but with a major difference: It's not nearly as stifling. ~ Michael Hastings, All Movie Guide