Ratcatcher

FROM OUR VAULTS! | "Set in and around a Glasgow tenement block during a dustman’s strike in the mid-’70s, Lynne Ramsay’s astonishingly assured feature debut centres on a 12-year-old (William Eadie, excellent) who, haunted by the (secret) role he played in a pal’s accidental death by drowning, gradually retreats into a private world of solitude, strange friendships and consoling dreams of a new home for his family.That’s about it, story-wise, but Ramsay’s bold visual sense, droll wit and tender but unsentimental take on the various characters and their relationships makes for a distinctly poetic brand of gritty realism, and one of the most impressive first features by a British director in some years" (Geoff Andrew, Time Out). "The social squalor of the setting is not allowed to drown out moments of reveries and flashes of surrealism ... Ramsay’s acclaimed first feature is a distinctive contribution to the cinema of childhood" (Tom Charity, The Rough Guide to Film). Colour, 35mm. 94 mins.