Harry Treadaway

Ratcatcher

Harrowingly beautiful tale of adolescence set amid the 1973 Glasgow dustmen's strike.

It's impossible to choose one film to share with future audiences as each week that goes by I change my mind on A, what makes a good film and B, which one is indeed my favourite. I think so much depends on when you watch it, what's going on in your life when you see it, where you see it, who with etc.... However, one film I saw recently for the first time was Lynne Ramsey's Ratcatcher. It took my breath away. From the first shot of the boy slowly unravelling from a twisted curtain, I felt like I was experiencing a new drug. marrying brooding, poetic images with bald, brash sequences, taken to the boil through gut-wrenchingly truthful performances, this film grabbed me hard, pulled me softly and pushed me through a heartbreaking story. I can't ask for more than that. The shot of the boy running through the corn field, seen through the window of the new house left tears in my eyes, a smile on my face and joy running through me... joy for what film can do to you. What can be made when the stars align and everything comes together in a symphony. In the worst august day I can remember, I was bouncing down the street, more exited by life than I was before I watched it. That’s what I think right now. Ask me again in a year’s time and I'm sure it'll be something else.

What doesn't excite me about the future of moving images is the acceleration towards a digital era, films coming out stuffed full of green screen sequences. When I watch Truffaut's 400 Blows, the efficiency of shots, the trust placed on the power of a wide shot and the impact gained by a rare, character-driven close up, it knocks me out. Yes, nowadays we can focus on an eyelash of someone whilst they somersault across the Grand Canyon. But that does nothing to me. That's not how I see life. Just because we can, should we? What excites me is directors who hold fast to this older era of filmmaking. Obviously things should keep moving forward, but how can you beat that rarest of things, a film, shot on film, with respect and faith in what can be garnered from naturally observing people, really taking to each other and people really listening to each other, in situations that are real? I don't know, it’s not for me to say, only that maybe we had more than we needed to tell tales on a big screen a long time ago. Perhaps the hardest thing to tell is when, as a medium, we're technologically full. And to stop eating.