By Ryan Moriarty
Baltimore Watchdog Staff Writer
A controversial film that uses rats as a metaphor to explore Baltimore’s complicated history and to serve as a backdrop for a deeper look into race and poverty was examined with “new lens” recently at Towson University.
TU’s Department of Electronic Media and Film hosted a viewing of Rat Film last week followed by a riveting discussion by a panel of filmmakers. Jennifer Potter, department chair and associate professor, introduced the film as one that, in light of recent events in Baltimore City, can be examined “in a new lens.” Potter added that she “thinks it’s important we do.”
Film Director Theo Anthony said he originally got the idea for the documentary after recording a rat trying to jump out of a trash can. The rat’s struggles open the movie, which looks at rat hunters. But the documentary ends up showing three things: those who hate rats, those who love rats, and how the rat infestation impacted Baltimore.
“Does the blind rat dream?” asks the deadpan voice-over in the feature-length documentary released in October 2017. Using rats as the driving metaphor, Anthony offers precise insights into the insidious ways institutionalized racism has carved up the city.
The film is both brutal and beautiful with a strong voice. The film seems to be about Baltimore’s relationship with the increasing rat population but, quickly the tone shifts to how, over Baltimore’s history, the people have been cast to the bottom of the social totem pole.
Anthony uses a redlining map from the depression era to show how little life has changed in Baltimore. Redlining is a process that institutions use to keep high-risk, low income people in a particular section, area or region. Courts have determined that redlining is illegal when lending institutions use race as a basis for excluding neighborhoods from access to loans.
The original map was made to “help” lenders know which neighborhoods to invest in and which to avoid. Those redlined neighborhoods still struggle with high volume of arrests and poverty, as well as a low life expectancy, the film showed. Taking an essayistic look at the issues, the film noted that relining is still practiced nearly 100 years later Nothing has changed significantly, Anthony notes.
Gabe Dinmoor, a cinematographer, said he had “mixed feelings” about the film.
“I don’t think this is how I want Baltimore to be depicted,” said Dinmoor, even as he praised the musical score and “experimental nature” of the work. “[I have] issues with how the city is portrayed.”
Newspaper headlines highlight Baltimore’s struggles with high murder rates, corruption, social injustice and poor school structures. However, the film suggested that Baltimore has always struggled with these social injustices. And, Anthony makes an effort to pull back the darker covers of Johns Hopkins history to show generations of class divide, all under the umbrella of studying the rat infestation.
The panelists praised the visual “beauty” of the film, as well as the historic components.
Lynn Tomlinson, an award-winning animator, said the documentary “works a lot on the level of metaphor.” However, she added that the director “doesn’t want to make it feel like rats are people and people are rats.”
Austin Garcia, a communications major at Towson, said he attended the viewing in ballroom A of West Village Commons with an open mind and had no expectations for what the film would contain.
“I can understand, and I agree with what he said,” said Garcia, siding with the film director.