捕鼠者

In the two short films, it’s very impressive how simple the settings are, especially in SMALL DEATHS. Lynne made a bold choice to put three moments together to make a short film. These are three tiny moments at different stages of a girl’s life. But there’s a cohesion between these moments. As Lynne said in the interview, these are tiny moments when things will never be the same for kids. These kind of tiny moments play big roles in everyone’s childhood, as they influenced how we see the world, what kind of person we will become. It touches the audience in the short because they are so authentic, personal and emotional and people feel connected, even though Lynne cares nothing about rules such as “character’s wants/problems/arc” or “active protagonist”. The short focus only on the three moments, elaborating the moments and simplifying the settings as much as possible. If in a traditional way to tell the story, it would start much earlier to introduce the characters, show informations, back stories, set up conflicts. It shows the director’s confidence to just show what’s really necessary to tell the story. And it works very well.

GASMAN is told in a more traditional way with beginning, middle and end. It’s engaging throughout the whole film, focusing on the kid’s perspective, as the conflict progresses. I like how the conflict peaks at the middle part when the two girls fight for daddy’s knee. Lynn didn’t dramatized the conflict but it feels real and authentic with the two girls’ natural performance. I like the beautiful images in the end when they are on their way home and both the two girls are on daddy’s shoulder, and when the two complicated families walk toward opposite directions on the railway. Everything seems back to normal again but the visual and the girl’s attempt to throw the rock tells so much about the situation and the dynamic under it. I also think the beginning scene when the two kids were asked by their mom to dress at home is a smart way to level the story up, even the story is completed without it. It shows how the family looks like normally before the discovery. It could start when the father and two kids coming out from the house but seeing and getting an idea of the origin family raises the stake when the protagonist girl found that another girl is taking her father away from her. And Lynne’s choice to show the scene partly in the frame is also smart to give the audience just the enough information.

RATCATCHER maintains the subjectivity from kid’s perspective, the use of details. But as a feature film it raises the topic to social problems includes people’s living condition. I think the environment of the neighborhood is built up very efficiently in the movie and becomes a crucial character itself. The main spaces include the polluted river, yard full of black garbages and rats, and the street in front of houses where kids play together. The whole film goes back to these three spaces a lot of times and conflicts happen at these places to show how people’s lives are around and influenced by these pollution, garbages and rats. The only other space shown in the movie is the newly built houses James went by buses, as a comparison. Those scenes on the buses as James move around excitedly also works meaningfully as a transition to the new world.

But I think it doesn’t work as good as in the shorts in terms of building the protagonist emotional journey. It sacrifices when the director wants to tell the story from a bigger scale. The character is not as authentic as in the shorts. Some of his action feels out of the filmmaker’s intention. For example I don’t think James’s desire to live in the new house, and his motivation to take suicide is built up authentically in the film. I think the story is already strong enough to show these characters’ lives, including how James looks for help from an older girl who’s bullied by other kids after accidentally killing another boy, and his friendship with this idealistic boy named Kenny, and the complicated relationship of James’ parents. All these are amazing characters with believable problems and emotion. In the end when it cuts from the dream house to James suicide, it looks like an artistic but political image to show the comparison purposefully. But I don’t feel connected well with the characters. I would prefer the film end with the parents’ relationship and James and the girl’s relationship, kept within the characters, while life will keep going without significant change.

#BFI# #BigsScreenClassics# 现实主义作品，带有肯洛奇的风格，与《小孩与鹰》一样，以英国底层小孩的眼睛看这个全英范围内的大罢工，再看这个社会。

本片在开场就展现给观众了一场惨剧，让观众与小男主一样参与到了这次意外中，弱肉强食的社会中，谁有确定自己是那捕鼠人，而不是只老鼠，片中老鼠似乎就象征着小男主自己，垃圾在城市之中堆积，大量的工程停摆，老鼠在大量繁殖，那条承载了大量悲伤的河又一次送葬了一条生命，与开始呼应。

视觉上，构图和运镜非常棒，尤其是构图，画面分割，大量的前景遮挡，都让同样知道秘密的观众从视觉上体会到那种空间被大量压缩的窒息感。特写升格很大程度的放大了情绪。

听觉上，很多时候配乐还是偏欢快的，带有“青春成长”的节奏感，当然对于悲剧的烘托使用的耳鸣也很不错，让观众把注意力都集中在画面上。

不太喜欢超现实表达的部分，无论是小白鼠的升空和结尾处的处理，逃避现实的残酷再以超现实展现的笑容始终不如现实来的更有冲击力。