RAT FILM (Theo Anthony). 82 minutes. Opens Friday (September 22). See listing. Rating: NNNN
“Does the blind rat dream?” asks the deadpan, nature-doc-style voice-over in Baltimore-based Theo Anthony’s essayistic look beneath the surface of his hometown.
It’s one of several Herzogian touches – rat fishermen and an exactingly realist exterminator are among the others – in a doc that follows the resilient vermin on an unpredictable journey through Baltimore’s history of racial segregation.
With rats as the driving metaphor, Anthony uses Google Street View-style graphics and archival maps to literally peel away layers and create both impressionistic and highly precise insights into the insidious ways institutionalized racism has carved up the city.
As one character puts it, the city does not have a rat problem, but “a people problem.” Rat Film cleverly jumbles and subverts several familiar doc genres and techniques into a wholly original work.
