Bill Douglas Trilogy: My Childhood [1972], My Ain Folk [1973], My Way Home [1978]

 Scottish filmmaker Bill Douglas’ remarkable trilogy evokes irony as much for its cinematic legacy – criminally under-watched despite being celebrated British New Wave films – as for its formal and thematic interplay. The three films were relentlessly bleak, on account of their grubby and desolate industrial setting, grim portrayal of socioeconomic and familial impoverishment, and rigorously spare and grainy monochrome treatments with both aesthetics and narratives pared to the bones. Yet, in parallel, they possessed deep emotional lyricism, visual poetics, hope, tenderness and warmth. And, while it’s impossible to understate the trilogy’s eloquent working-class politics, it was, above all, an intensely personal work. Essentially a reimagining of Douglas’ own experience and memories of growing up amidst extreme poverty, hardships and estrangements in the mining village of Newcraighall, during and after WW2, the three slender films covered the childhood and teenage years of his alter-ego Jamie (played with taciturn impassiveness by Stephen Archibald, whose weather-beaten face belied his young age). Douglass, in fact, had found Archibald – a deeply troubled kid with whom he developed a life-long kinship – through complete chance at a bus stop. In My Childhood, 8-year-old Jamie – abandoned by his dad upon his mom’s internment at a mental institution – is seen living with his loving granny and elder cousin brother Tommy, while forming a close bond with a Germany POW. In My Ain Folk, Jamie goes to live with his difficult and neurotic maternal grandmother, where he becomes close to his aged granddad. And finally in My Way Home, post shuttling between foster care and barren home, he’s conscripted into RAF, and thereafter develops friendship with Robert – who has difficulty in understanding his thick Scottish accent – while stationed in Egypt.

Director: Bill Douglas

Genre: Drama/Film a Clef/Semi-Autobiographical/Coming-of-Age

Language: English

Country: UK/Scotland

Morvern Callar [2002]

Morvern Callar, Lynne Ramsay’s follow-up to her acclaimed debut feature Ratcatcher, a hauntingly beautiful, intensely moody (even angry, if you will) and highly visceral poetry on celluloid. Only that, unlike the latter, lyricism has been replaced with a more grimy approach, thus making watching the movie a strangely liberating, albeit claustrophobic experience. Morvern Caller (played with astounding subtlety, maturity and fearlessness by Samantha Morton), is a working-class girl who, one not-so-fine day, wakes up in her apartment to find that her boyfriend has slit his wrists and is lying in a pool of blood. However, contrary to how one would expect her to act a situation such as this, in a case of reverse nervous breakdown, she decides to start “living” her life by going on a vacation with her best friend to Spain, and even decides to pass off her beau’s unpublished novel as her own. Ramsay has displayed tremendous confidence in her ability as a visual storyteller by presenting the disquieting and emotionally naked tale of existential grief and angst with a barrage of psychedelic images and lighting, sprayed with an intoxicating expressionistic splash, which in turn have been aided by a superb hip-punk soundtrack.








Director: Lynne Ramsay
Genre: Drama/Psychological Drama/Road Movie
Language: English
Country: UK (Scotland)

Ratcatcher [1999]

-->Ratcatcher, Scottish director Lynne Ramsay’s exceptional debut feature film (she was earlier into making award-winning short films), is an exceedingly bleak yet hauntingly lyrical coming-of-age story of a 12-year old resident of Glasgow. Set during the 1973-strike of garbage-workers, working-class Glasgow here is a picture of squalor, decadence and grunge. And amidst a plethora of rats and an equally filthy group of hooligans resides James, a frail, socially inept and emotionally withdrawn boy (more so because of his role in the accidental death of a neighbourhood kid), who lives with his parents and siblings, forms an unlikely platonic-relationship with an older, troubled girl, and dreams of moving into their new house in the countryside. On one hand, the movie might not be easily palatable for its grim subject matter, and disconsolate, dreary and disturbing portrayal of poverty, juvenile delinquency, broken homes and self-destruction; on the other, it boasts of moments of absolutely stunning visual beauty that is almost heartbreaking in its candid depiction of the world through a child’s eyes. The movie isn’t so much about its plot as it is about its imagery and characterizations. And in its daring (and at times, even poignant) portrayal of not-so-innocent children, Ramsay kick-started her tryst with cinema in quite memorable fashion.







Director: Lynne Ramsay
Genre: Drama/Urban Drama/Coming-of-Age
Language: English
Country: UK (Scotland)