Movie Reviw: Rat Film

Rat Film **** / *****

Directed by: Theo Anthony.

 

I often complain that too many documentaries use the rather boring point and shoot style – filming interviews with various talking heads, and mixing them with archival footage in a style that is basically interchangeable from doc to doc – even good ones. Once in a while though, we get something truly unique – and Theo Anthony’s Rat Film certainly qualifies on that level. The film is an 80 minute look at the rat problem in Baltimore – both historically, and in the present, and is a strange mixture of styles and tones, going from deadpan humor, to the surreal, to the tragic, and back again. The film is a tone poem that gets at something real about the city it documents. As one of the exterminators says in the film – Baltimore doesn’t have a rat problem, it has a people problem.

 

That statement, is probably the thesis of the film. Rats are inevitable when you cram this many people into this small of a space, and have rundown buildings, and garbage buildup all around. The rats are going to come. The film documents the historical way that Baltimore first dealt with the problem – including block by block maps by Kurt Richter, who mapped out everywhere rats went, to better able to deal with them. There’s also some other, strange details in the film – like the opening, where we see a rat try and escape a City of Baltimore Garbage Can – rats can jump up to 32 inches, the City’s cans are 34 inches. That rat isn’t getting out.

 

Watching Rat Film is an odd experience, as you never quite know where the film is going to go next. There are scenes literally from the rat’s point of view in the film – virtual reality simulations for example, and then Anthony will veer off to the various, creative ways the residents of the city deal with rats themselves. If they weren’t rats, you’d likely call some of what they do cruel – and maybe it is – but they all have to some way of dealing with it.

 

What emerges over time though is a portrait of this city which is forced to deal with the rat problem, mainly because of class and race issues. Eventually, everything comes back down to that, and always will unless people actually want to do something about the problem. They don’t. Rat Film is an odd film – I almost don’t know what else to say about it, because it is so strange – but it’s certainly one of the most unique docs of the year – and a film that will likely last in your mind after most docs have vanished. Seek it out.