Ratcatcher (1999)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

Ratcatcher (1999) -- L. Ramsey

Seemingly cut from the Ken Loach cloth of UK social realism, with a gritty hard look at a Glasglow tenement slum during a garbarge strike in the mid-70s, but then you start getting these "enhanced" emotional moments that feel more poetic (as reality can sometimes be, but the camera can highlight and hone in on).  Some of these moments are dire and distressing, as you would imagine this social and physical environment might facilitate, but others are more elevating and touching.  The focus is a young boy, not quite coming of age, but dealing as best he can with the accidental (and self-wrought) fortunes and misfortunes that come his way.  The Scottish accents are near impossible to understand but the feelings are evoked nevertheless.  Moving, but always with that knot in the pit of your stomach.