Ratcatcher (1999)

I was not consciously aware of just how much I really do appreciate having not grown up in a Glasgow slum in the 1970's until I saw this movie. A dark, dank, coming of age story set amidst the backdrop of lower class government housing in 1970's Glasgow Scotland, and during a garbage strike no less. The main character is roughly 12 year old James Gillespie ( William Eadie, quite good) the middle of three children living with his parents in a decaying and depopulating government housing complex. For more of the plot summery I borrow from Wikipedia: (Spoilers)

"The film opens focused upon James' friend Ryan Quinn, being forced to put on his wellington boots to go to visit his father, who is in jail. He'd rather play with James instead and runs off while his mother is not looking. Ryan meets James at the canal and during some rough-house play he is drowned, clearly with James bearing much of the blame for not having raised the alarm. James believes his inaction has gone unnoticed.

The film follows the sensitive James as he tries to come to terms with his guilt, and make sense of the insensitive aspects of his environment.

His one escape comes when he takes a bus to the end of the line and ends up in the outskirts of the city, where a new housing estate is under construction. He explores the half-built houses, and wonders in awe at the view from the kitchen window: an expansive field of wheat, blowing in the wind and reaching to the horizon. In a scene central to the film, he climbs through the window and escapes into the blissful freedom of the field.

James befriends a girl, Margaret Anne, whom he tries to help after her glasses are thrown into the canal by the local gang. James and Margaret Anne become close friends. She is his only other relief from his home environment. She has problems of her own, allowing herself to be abused by the local gang. The two find comfort in each other's company.

In a memorable scene, one of James's friends, Kenny, receives a pet mouse as a birthday present. After the gang throw the mouse around to make him "fly", Kenny ties the mouse's tail to a balloon and we see it float to the moon where it joins a whole colony of other mice frolicking on the moon.

The same friend falls in the canal later and is rescued by James' father, making him briefly into a local hero.

Ryan's family are eventually re-housed and on the day of leaving, Ryan's mother gives James the pair of brown sandals she had bought for Ryan on the day of his death.

Though the military eventually comes and cleans up all the garbage in the neighborhood, James realizes that his situation will most likely never change. He plunges himself into the canal, and we are shown a brief scene is which James's family is moving into a new neighborhood."

So needless to say a rather dark film, though  with some almost playful fantasy sequences thrown in. James lives in harsh environment both physically and emotionally and he nurses a great deal of guilt. James seems to carry on because the prospect of his family's potential move, and his growing relationship with Margret Ann help provide enough hope and promise to motivate him too, that is until they are both taken away and he discovers that his role in Ryan's death was in fact witnessed, he then commits suicide by drowning himself in the same dirty ditch. Because of the stylistic choices in how the end of the film is presented it could be possible for some viewers to miss James suicide, but I'd be hard pressed for another coherent interpretation. Ratcather is powerful film making that leaves an impression. ***1/2