Rat Film

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source: Rat Film

Intriguing and uncomfortable questions are raised by Theo Anthony's film, which gives itself permission to meander between straight-forward aspects of pest control, and the larger innuendo surrounding the control of human society. Yes, big cities like Baltimore have endemic problems. The rats are a ripe visual reminder in its gritty streets. But what Theo Anthony really captures is that this same notorious mammal that is so often used in experimentation and treated as a close-equivalent for what to expect in humans via testing, is in fact a marker for what humans should expect in the society that is altering quickly around them. The Rockefeller Foundation and other arms of scientific research have indeed tested on rats, and aimed to eugenically target certain human populations as well. There is much, much more to be found in personal research. A huge area, a blight on the part of society's self-appointed shepherds. An unsettling visual metaphor emerges from the flow of the film -- the relationship between populations and their food supply; the relationship between the environment, and its ability to change its inhabitants; and at the same time, the perpetuation of conditions, the ghettos of Baltimore, namely, through policies, zoning, labeling and lending/lack of lending and investment. What and who is marked as a pest, tends to remain a pest. Maybe it is a problem of what the looker has decided to see?

This movie cleverly uses a wide range of filmmaking techniques, traditional and new, to create a mosaic of the history and current conditions of a large, culturally diverse and historic city. The theme is ambiguous, which makes more effective the vignettes of poverty, willful discrimination lasting generations, and the psychology and survival methods of humans and of rodents - one of the most highly evolved of non-human species, and one closest to humans in their needs and behaviors. The editing is crisp, cutting from the historic to the present to the futuristic and back. This is not a movie about rats. It's a movie that makes you think about 21st century urban life, its joys - beautiful people and places - and shortcomings. And above all, since this is not the city of our dreams, how, knowing what we see here, can we build one?

Only about half of this film was about rats. Other parts were just rambling with long stretches using Google street views and aerial views of Baltimore. It was like it wanted to transport the viewer into some kind of video arcade or game. Statistics were cited over and over that had little correlation with rats. There was little in the way of relating these stats to rats. This film was so annoying because it would have some segments on rats - and then veer completely off topic. It even showed what looked to be NASCAR racing!! Even though this was hardly over an hour it just dragged on. Not very illuminating.

This was one of the worst films a SXSW Film Festival. The audience found it confusing and almost incoherent. The experimental attempt kept jumping around from rats to video games to the sociology of race in Baltimore to some sort of attempt to recreate crime scenes. None of these parts seemed to be connect to the other parts. It just jumped from one part to another without any real transition or clear narrative. The narration was also done in this strange voice that sounded almost like a computerized voice. There were individual scenes and characters that seemed somewhat intriguing particularly as they related to the human relations with rats. Some people wanted to exterminate them while others treated them as pets. But none of it connected in this poorly edited mess of a movie. This was film is sadly a failed experiment.

"Rat Film" is a feature-length documentary that uses the rat--as well as the humans that love them, live with them, and kill them--to explore the history of Baltimore. "There's never been a rat problem in Baltimore, it's always been a people problem." Although this film is excellent, it may be unsettling for some viewers who prefer the lineal, traditional documentary film. This film is not the same old thing, and even the title is rather misleading. Yes, we have stories about rats in Baltimore, rat catchers, people with rats for pets... and did you happen to know that rat poison came from Baltimore after it could no longer be obtained from Germany? But it also covers the history of segregation in Baltimore and how the system perpetuates itself. Theo Anthony, the director, sees the film as a series of tangents and tangents on tangents that all relate. Viewers may see it, maybe not. Sometimes the tangents get really out of hand... the forensic science sections are fascinating, and are worthy of a look, but how do they relate to rats or any of this?

I have no idea what this film was supposed to be about. Some rats are present, both the wild and the lab kind, and Baltimore gets mentioned a lot, but you don't learn anything interesting about rats, Baltimore, or rats in Baltimore. Some lunatics hunt rats with blowpipe and fish them from alleys using bait and tackle (that image is where the film earns a second star from me). Contents also include: superficial musings on segregation; some stuff about forensics training that appears to have been recovered from another project and tacked on to this one to fill out the time; slow-mo shots of fireworks; and lots and lots of rendered footage purportedly from a video game but looking to all the world like Google Earth with 3D switched on running on a low-spec laptop. Baffling.

It really takes a lot of nerve to make a film like this, divining a parallel between rat life and urban governance, but it really works. With Biden as President, it's timely, too!