Still: Daniel Hughes
Katy Dye’s new film, RATS! created in collaboration with Daniel Hughes, and with atmospheric lighting by Jamie Black, is a whispering phantasmagoria, a creepy, provocative waking dream.
Clad in wig, shades, and long tail, Dye scampers, creeps, twitches and tiptoes through the twilight streets of Glasgow, scavenging and scraping, hatching nefarious plans.
Her eerie voiceover warns of taking over the cities, of spreading disease and multiplying. It’s not difficult to see this film as an extended metaphor for the dangers of othering outsiders, of the propaganda of fear perpetuated by our ridiculous, right-wing government talking immigration and multiculturalism, with their recent hateful tirades against ‘swarms’ of foreigners coming into the UK.
Yet even on another level, as a simple chronicle of scurrying rats looking for somewhere cosy to set up home, it’s deeply unnerving. Dye imbues Rat with a quiet malevolence and, perversely, some elegance, scratching at her itchy wig, slipping by the houses unnoticed and fixing the camera with an unsettling stare. And then, she just stares some more.
As lockdown eases a little, but we’re still wary, now seems like the perfect time to watch this, and ponder the safety of safe spaces. After all, 2020 is The Year of The Rat.
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