Intriguing and uncomfortable questions are raised by Theo Anthony's film, which gives itself permission to meander between straight-forward aspects of pest control, and the larger innuendo surrounding the control of human society.
Yes, big cities like Baltimore have endemic problems. The rats are a ripe visual reminder in its gritty streets.
But what Theo Anthony really captures is that this same notorious mammal that is so often used in experimentation and treated as a close-equivalent for what to expect in humans via testing, is in fact a marker for what humans should expect in the society that is altering quickly around them.
The Rockefeller Foundation and other arms of scientific research have indeed tested on rats, and aimed to eugenically target certain human populations as well. There is much, much more to be found in personal research. A huge area, a blight on the part of society's self-appointed shepherds.
An unsettling visual metaphor emerges from the flow of the film -- the relationship between populations and their food supply; the relationship between the environment, and its ability to change its inhabitants; and at the same time, the perpetuation of conditions, the ghettos of Baltimore, namely, through policies, zoning, labeling and lending/lack of lending and investment.
What and who is marked as a pest, tends to remain a pest. Maybe it is a problem of what the looker has decided to see?
