Ratopolis
1973 · 56m · Canada
Directed by Gilles Thérien
Genres: documentary, essay film
Tones: contemplative, dark
The brown rat is examined as a resilient global companion to humans that consumes vast food stores and adapts readily when left to roam. Crowding and scarcity, however, transform colony behavior, prompting comparisons with wider animal societies and efforts to control plague, predators, and infestation.
Picked by Margot
The scouts
Okay, a 56-minute NFB essay about rats as a mirror for human society could be twee—but Thérien uses the premise without irony, letting the plague logic do the talking instead of the metaphor. That's the kind of conceptual restraint that actually unsettles.
Thérien positions this squarely in the lineage of structural essay cinema—Brakhage's behavioral observation, Marker's anthropological eye—and the formal rigor never wavers; the contemplative tone and dark subject matter create a considered meditation on adaptation and collapse that rewards close looking.
The decision to let the rat colonies speak for themselves through behavioral footage rather than narrate the social commentary is what makes this work—one sound design choice or editorial rhythm in the crowding sequences transforms what could be National Geographic into something genuinely unsettling.