Ratcatcher (1999)
Directed by Lynne Ramsay
James Gillespie is 12 years old. The world he knew is changing. Haunted by a secret, he has become a stranger in his own family. He is drawn to the canal where he creates a world of his own. He finds an awkward tenderness with Margaret Anne, a vulnerable 14 year old expressing a need for love in all the wrong ways, and befriends Kenny, who possesses an unusual innocence in spite of the harsh surroundings.
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What critics compared Ratcatcher to
There’s more than a hint of the tactility of Lynne Ramsay’s early works, with short films such as Gasman (1997) and features such as Ratcatcher (1999) clearly serving as inspirations.
Aftersun can be compared with Ratcatcher since they were debut films that focused on young characters, had different storylines that take place in a certain area, and had the occasional artistic diversion.
Hablando acerca de Moonlight, Jenkins ha mencionado a Lynne Ramsay y Ratcatcher, a Richard Linklater y Boyhood, a Hou Hsiao-hsien y al escritor James Baldwin.
There’s a touch of Lynne Ramsay’s Ratcatcher or Clio Barnard’s The Selfish Giant in the way Baker and co-writer/producer Chris Bergoch embrace Moonee’s defiant perspective, making us feel her joy and pain with all the raw urgency of youth.
It recalls another diaphanous image—young James, in Ramsay’s debut Ratcatcher (1999), windingly wrapping himself in white drapes.
He is ably matched by the often silent but striking Samsonov (this and Ratcatcher make Ramsay the Patron Saint Of Dead-Eyed Children), a perfect partner in pain for Joe.
Lynne Ramsay's previous films include the brutal We Need To Talk About Kevin, and the exceedingly grim Ratcatcher, and Jonathan Ames demonstrated an obvious fondness for gritty detective stories with his comedic TV take on the genre, Bored to Death.
You Were Never Really Here is a fourth feature from Lynne Ramsay (Ratcatcher, Morvern Callar, We Need to Talk About Kevin) and the first thing to say is that it is exceptionally violent.
None of this quality coupled with uncompromising direction should come as any surprise seeing as You Were Never Really Here is a Lynne Ramsay feature (the woman behind the outstanding Ratcatcher and We Need to Talk About Kevin here adapting the novel by Jonathan Ames), and it is unfortunate that the gaps between her efforts are as wide as they are.
As she has in her previous films, “Ratcatcher” (1999), “Morvern Callar” (2002), and “We Need to Talk About Kevin” (2011) — the only one where the approach felt arch and overdone — Ramsay uses pop songs new and old along with broodingly lyrical original music to bring us further into a dangerous enchanted land.
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Working with cinematographer Alwin H. Kuchler, who has worked on such disparate films as Lynne Ramsay’s stripped-down kitchen-sink drama Ratcatcher (1999) and Danny Boyle’s sci-fi freakout Sunshine (2007), Wright gives Hanna a compelling visual design that emphasizes long takes and open spaces.
And with any luck they'll give it to Ratcatcher's Lynne Ramsay to direct.
The notion of curtains returns again but only briefly as Grace playfully wraps herself in one – an intriguing reference to the opening of Ratcatcher.
Lynne Ramsay (Ratcatcher, Morvern Callar, You Were Never Really Here) directs…
Scottish filmmaker Lynne Ramsay (Ratcatcher, 1999; We Need to Talk About Kevin, 2011; You Were Never Really Here, 2017)…
Lynn Ramsay’s “Die My Love” is the latest endurance test from the Scottish filmmaker who had me with her stunning “Ratcatcher” (1999) and lost me with her subsequent work.
Try “Ratcatcher” or “We Need to Talk About Kevin” if you need an introduction.
The good, the bad, it’s all artfully depicted by Ramsay (whose previous directing credits include Ratcatcher, We Need to Talk About Kevin, and You Were Never Really Here)—as long as you don’t find yourself lost in the film’s more ethereal qualities.
I'm a huge fan of director Lynne Ramsay and have been eagerly waiting almost a decade for her follow up to her first two amazing, unique films: Ratcatcher (1999) and Morvern Callar (2002).
"We Need to Talk About Kevin" was directed and co-written by Lynne Ramsey, the Scottish filmmaker who made a name for herself on the world film circuit with her first two features, the equally heavy dramas "Ratcatcher" and "Morvern Callar," the latter of which debuted nearly a decade ago.
Ramsay’s a Scottish-born director who made two striking films a decade ago, 1999’s “Ratcatcher’’ and 2002’s “Morvern Callar.’’
Scottish writer/director Lynne Ramsey has been acclaimed for her desolate, visually stylized, European-art house sensibility, as demonstrated in “Ratcatcher” and “Morvern Callar,” as she makes repeated use of the color red, not only in the opening tomato-throwing festival sequence in Spain but also in the paint that neighborhood vandals throw on Eva’s house and the soup cans Eva hides behind in the grocery store.
"We Need to Talk About Kevin" is one of the most beautifully bleak psychological fake-outs the cinema's given us in years, as Lynne Ramsay ("Ratcatcher," "Morvern Callar") directs an adaptation of Lionel Shriver's 2003 novel.
Only in that context - only following Ratcatcher (whose own opening shot is similar enough to that drifting curtain that I presume it's not an accident) and Morvern Callar , and a following silence enough to generate Malick-levels of anticipation for whatever the hell she'd finally come out with - could I unashamedely call WNTTAK a "disappointment"; it's challenging and unique and emotionally apocalyptic, its structure is so unconventional as to beggar description and yet it is the only way this version of this story could be told, and dammit but it's not perfect.