"Nothin' wrong with a drop of rat's blood."
The Rat Catcher is a 2023 Short Film by Wes Anderson, the third of the Roald Dahl short story adaptations Anderson did for Netflix that were released in 2023. This one premiered on September 29, 2023.
Richard Ayoade's narrator tells the story of a odd rat catcher (Ralph Fiennes, who also plays Dahl), who has been called by local shopowner Claud (Rupert Friend) to eliminate some rats that live across the street.
Tropes:
- Animal Motifs: The rat catcher is naturally associated with rats, not just in appearance but also in snively mannerisms. The stop motion rat he's about to eat even appears to speak with his voice to highlight the similarities between the two.
- Beauty Inversion: Ralph Fiennes is given dark, beady eyes, a sharp widow's peak over a ragged wig, and ugly, uneven yellow teeth to look ratlike. This especially contrasts his
other character Roald Dahl, who looks more gentlemanly and sits in a cozy room. - Chiaroscuro: In the last portion of the short film, Friend plays the rat that the rat catcher is dared to eat. The lighting dims suddenly and lights are pointed at the actors' faces, giving the scene an eerie and dramatic appeal.
- Meaningful Background Event: In every shot of the news building, a missing poster for "Ole Bill Jonesy" is prominently seen. With the rats in the hayrick not bothering to eat the rat catcher's oats and the two others musing they must be eating something else, coupled with them both looking at the poster, it's made very clear they were eating Ole Bill.
- Scary Teeth: The narrator draws special attention to the rat man's protruding, yellow ugly front teeth.
- Squirrels in My Pants: The rat man lets a ferret chase a rat all around the inside of his shirt (or so the narrator claims, since the playlike nature of the short means that the actors are gesturing with nonexistent props).
- Stop Motion: In a mostly live-action short, the final rat seen is animated in stop motion before it's eaten.
