Rat Film

Name: Rat Film
Genre: Documentary
Released: September 15, 2017
Duration: 82 min
Rating: 83
Cast: Dan Deacon, Theo Anthony

2017

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Universal acclaim based on 13 Critic Reviews

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USER SCORE

Mixed or average reviews based on 9 Ratings

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5.3

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5.3	User Score Mixed or average reviews based on 9 Ratings

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Rat Film

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Movie Details & Credits

Cinema Guild, The | Release Date: September 15, 2017 | Not Rated

Starring: Dan Deacon, Theo Anthony

Summary: Across walls, fences, and alleys, rats not only expose our boundaries of separation but make homes in them. 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 aAcross walls, fences, and alleys, rats not only expose our boundaries of separation but make homes in them. 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".… Expand

Director: Theo Anthony

Genre(s): Documentary

Rating: Not Rated

Runtime: 82 min

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Critic Reviews

100

Jeannette Catsoulis

Sep 14, 2017

Equal parts disturbing and humorous, informative and bizarre, Rat Film is a brilliantly imaginative and formally experimental essay on how Baltimore has dealt with its rat problem and manipulated its black population. Read full review

100

Michael Phillips

Sep 14, 2017

It’s one of the most imaginative and provocative documentaries on any topic I’ve seen this year. Read full review

100

Sheri Linden

Oct 12, 2017

There’s a thrilling friction between the smoothly assembled pieces of Anthony’s narrative, and often sparks. Read full review

John Semley

Sep 21, 2017

Rat Film is most compelling when it moves out of the history of Baltimore's civic-planning and pest-control schemes and settles on its denizens, both human and rodent. Read full review

Dom Sinacola

Oct 19, 2017

Anthony’s is the rare film that thrives in its parts rather than in the sum of them, though the sum is breathlessly simple, to the extent that one wonders why no film has ever connected the lines—lined up the parallels—as Anthony has. Read full review

Richard Brody

Sep 2, 2017

[Anthony] turns a concluding sequence of civic pride and good cheer into a brilliantly light-hearted fantasy of grave import, a radical political utopia conjured with a deft artistic flourish. It’s one of the most extraordinary, visionary inspirations in the recent cinema. Read full review

Clayton Dillard

Sep 11, 2017

Inherent to director Theo Anthony's misappropriation of the essay form is a conflicting account of precisely which history his documentary seeks to investigate. Read full review

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User Reviews

mdjettatdi

Sep 23, 2017

"Rat Film" is a fair documentary at its core, but the focus diverts to issues that don't bear any relationship to the central idea. Really, it is a solid 30 minute film that has about 50 minutes of extra padding that doesn't do much more than bore, confuse or irritate the audience. This"Rat Film" is a fair documentary at its core, but the focus diverts to issues that don't bear any relationship to the central idea. Really, it is a solid 30 minute film that has about 50 minutes of extra padding that doesn't do much more than bore, confuse or irritate the audience. This "essay-doc" is at times captivating, but more often it becomes scattered, self-indulgent nonsense. Nevertheless, this film should be a mandatory part of the curriculum at film schools, to show that having aspirations to be the next Marker or Herzog aren't enough, and if you make a film that doesn't hang together as a whole, you may end up looking like a pretentious fool--like Theo Anthony. One other point: In an interview for the Baltimore Sun, Anthony admitted that instead of filming real people, he "recruited actors to try their hands at rat fishing". Rather than making this clear to the viewer, he just hides behind the claim that his film "is no conventional documentary." What nonsense.… Expand

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