User Reviews

It's grim up north the old saying goes; Gasman by Lynne Ramsey won't change that stereotype but it does illustrate the talent of this director. This short film shares similarities with the both work of Mike Leigh and social realist 'kitchen sink' films of the sixties, in showing a slice of life story from the lower classes. Read; bleak setting and diegetic sound.

Set in an undisclosed Scottish city at Christmas, the story concerns a day in the life of lower class father (James Ramsey), daughter Lynne (Lynne Ramsey Jr) and son Steven (Martin Anderson) as they walk the tracks. En route, they mysteriously pick up more children from a woman (Jackie Quinn), Lisa (Lisa Taylor) and Robert (Robert McEwan).

Gasman is a powerful piece, due in no small part to the performance by Lynne Ramsey Jr. It is a powerful portrait of a working class young girl and the confusion she faces. When pretending to be Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz, you really believe that 'There's no place like home.' The supporting cast are also suitably bedraggled for their characters to be believable. There are some fine visual flourishes in this short piece; the close shots of people getting ready for their day out give the film a very intimate feel, as if you are really looking into their family life. There is appropriate use of light and dark contrast, in particular as they are in wide shot walking up the tracks. Also, the working club Christmas party is visual delight, with child POV shots, slow motion and chopped up editing.

At times the Scottish dialect is quite hard to follow with the sound quality being quite raw. My main issue with the film would be that Gasman doesn't have anything original to say. Gasman is suitably bleak according to genre convention but its essential message being that it's challenging growing up in a lower class environment has been a mainstay of social realist cinema since before Kes. Still grim it would seem.

One of the most difficult problems to solve is the people relationships.

The father has two families, which means the four little children have blood relations. However, maybe of course, they do not know that.

In the Christmas party the main character girl is coming to feel uncomfortable about the other girl who is her half sister indeed. In the last scene, when they are coming back home, the order of the people especially the girls mentions the very touchy feelings of them. The girl is so confused but does not know the truth. This is a very interesting film and is questioning us about what to do with such a problem.

A little girl, Lynne, puts on her yellow dress with her mother's help, while her brother is playing with a toy car and sugar. They are taken by their father to a Christmas party. On the way to the party, the three people meet a woman with two children. One of the two is a little girl who is as old as Lynne. Lynne talks to the girl and they become friends, so they just are friends. However, things are not so simple. They arrive at the party and a lot of children including Lynne enjoy themselves. While Lynne is dancing with Santa, the girl feels lonely and sits on the knees of Lynne's father. Looking at the scene, Lynne realizes that the girl is not just her friend. Lynne feels jealous of and anger with her. Since this moment, her mind is very complicated.

First, this film is very difficult to understand. Therefore it was not until I watched this film three times that I figure out what is represented. However, the director made it so on purpose, I think. Metaphors used in this film are all elaborate. Therefore it is hard, though, it made a sophisticated impression on me.

This film is a kind of masterpiece. I mean the great actors, actresses and director excel. Without them, this film couldn't be like this.

Gasman is a proper short film - little plot, none of it told explicitly, but a larger story going on around the camera. Like most of Lynne Ramsey's stuff (Ratcatcher being the best and most enjoyable example, because it isn't a short)it feels like and probably is 1970s/80s East-end Glasgow, the struggling classes and a fairly grim outlook, but you see the little sparks of interest in real lives, and being a small story told very much from a child's point of view, it's much more hopeful, interesting and happy than it could have been. The characters, so few, and so little seen in the short still have immense believability and completeness. Most people will find this dull, but if you're the kind of person who knows how to get hold of a copy, you're probably the type of person who'd enjoy it. Arty, but not impenetrable, simple but thought-provoking.

I've never been a fan of short films for their 'art-school' and 'experimental' qualities. Simply being a product of those two is not enough. They are almost always too personal, too opaque, and too much obviously serving as 'stepping-stones'.

I was therefore happy to see Lynne Ramsay's short films as the chrysalis for her superb feature films. I was also impressed to learn that she won the Cannes short-film prize, *twice*. And now I can see what others saw in her, for _Gasman_ is the best short film I have ever seen.

Available on the Criterion DVD with _Small Deaths_ and the less good _Kill the Day_, _Gasman_ is a fully-fledged, visionary film that translates directly into the skill and grace of _Ratcatcher_.

_Gasman_ moves directly from the first piece of _Short Deaths_, with the distant father and Lynne Ramsay Jr. again taking centre screen. But _Gasman_ comes to a kind a fruition--a full story with many of the same themes and techniques of _Ratcatcher_: closely observed yet elliptical human behaviour, housing projects, slum-beauty, children's natures, a jumbled impressionistic world caught in partial body closeups and shots from behind people.

The film 'tells' nothing, but the story is dead clear and builds slowly to an emotional pitch that is almost unbearable.

This is a film of jaw-dropping beauty. Sounds trite, but that's how I feel. When the Da and two kids walk on the tracks, the camera is set to a partially closed iris which intensifies the available light and colour in an otherworldly sheen--one that is gone when they return on the same tracks at night, in disappointment. Beauty in service of story is the key.

This *is* the best short film I have ever seen.

A little girl Lynne and her brother are taken to a Christmas party by their father. On the way to the party, a girl and boy join them. Lynne makes friends with the girl, but during the party, she sees the girl sitting down on the father's knee. It makes her displeased. After the party, the girl goes back home with her mother and Lynne stands with her eyes riveted on their back figures. In this film, the detailed circumstances are not explained. So I'm not sure whether I understand the story correctly, but the children may have blood relation.

The camera work in this movie is interesting. At the beginning of the film, we can see only backs or foots of characters. At the party scene, the screen sways uncertainly and it makes me feel as if I'm going to participate in the party.

This short film from Lynne Ramsay is extremely impressive on a technical level as well as emotionally stirring. The director has an uncanny ability to capture those seemingly small and insignificant moments in a child's life which have a lasting and profound effect; those moments when everything changes, innocence is lost and nothing will ever be the same again. The children in her films learn the facts of life the hard way and quite often have to make sense of them on their own without the aide of an understanding parent. I was more moved by "Gasman" than I was with "Ratcatcher" (her first feature length which is a must see for true film connoisseurs) for this reason. The director keeps information from the audience, so that when we discover what the little girl discovers it's just as new and poignant for the viewer without being predictable. Lynne Ramsay is a true "auteur" who possesses the uncanny ability to capture beautiful and haunting moments of life.

This is a beautiful movie. Some impressive angles are used throughout the film; the shots not taking people's face, focusing on the girl's skirt, taking only silhouette. At the party scene, the camera's eyes move as if it is a member of children playing there. I like the scene that the family prepares for going to the Christmas party; The mother cares for everyone, the father sips a cup of coffee, the boy playing a minicab scattering the salt in the kitchen, the girl wearing her clothes for a special day. Actually, I'm not sure that I could understand the story and the deep meaning of this film well, especially the last scene, a girl standing and staring at another girl and her family with a rock in her hand. I also could not get why this film is titled "Gasman," because I feel it is a story of "girls." It's a story telling to us girls' mind is complicated. They can easily pretend to be friends, they love their fathers, and they are jealous.

Gasman is a 1998 film by Lynne Ramsa. This film won Best Short Film at the Cannes Film Fest, the BAFTA Awards, and the Atlantic Film Fest. The direction and the camera work of this film are very strange. There is a little girl and a little boy. There is Christmas music. The girl gets dressed. The boy gets sugar on his toy car and plays with it. There is a mother, hurrying them up. In this scene, you can see the face of the characters hardly. Then, they go out and walk along the railway. The family arrives at a Christmas party. The visual and sound are somehow filled with uneasiness. This may be because of the strange direction and the unstable camera work. So, you will be drawn into the screen although it is very short film.

The father who has two kids meets a woman who has two kids to go to the Christmas party. He hides that he has another family and has another two kids. The two kids meet the other two kids suddenly. They must be confused, and they never thought they are brother and sister. The little girl is jealous of the other girl, because the other girl sits on her father's knees. If I were the little kid and faced with the same situation, I would get angry, so I can understand the daughter's feeling. I think it is difficult to make friends with each other. Many little children want their parents to take care of their kids. I want to ask the father why he has two families. Not only his wife but also their children must be depressed. Through this movie, I think we had better not associate with various women. We should cherish our family.

I too was surprised by Ramsay's "thorough understanding" of a child's mind and feelings. Gasman was a good description of a Little girls relationship with her father. Her rivalry with another little girl, who looks quite similar, and is of the same relative age; the two in a sort of competition for the fathers lap. Not being able to 'share' her father she begins to pull her rivals hair. In this film the railroad is a symbol of the fathers long toiling life, his being torn between his two families/lives. I am sort of wondering, what the two sons, they kind of just walk and are in the sides of the shots, not really characters but props, but I cannot quite figure out what they are doing/ what purpose they are sharing.

This movie is about children who react with naïve simple emotion to a situation by father in the Christmas party and also deep and meaningful.

The first scene of the movie shows us the foreign family's everyday morning. This scene of ordinary lets me think about foreign lives. The scene in the party, a girl got angry at a girl sat on her father. I think this is jealousy. But I don't know the true meaning. Last scene was also mysterious. On the railway, a woman who has other two children suddenly appears and takes them to somewhere without saying any words.

I think this movie is full of mysterious things for me, so I couldn't understand almost of all! Unfortunately there aren't many information about this. If I can understand the words what people saying in this, I can understand easily! Understanding movie only by watching is very difficult. Listening to words what they are saying is important!

A girl and her brother get dressed up and go out with their father. On the way, they meet a woman, a girl and a boy. They look like the same age with the brother. Two girls, two boys and their father go to a Christmas party. The girl looks happy, however, she sees the girl who she met a while ago is on the lap of her own father. She is angry. Probably, they are half brothers. However, the children are good friends.

This is a fairly serious story for me. I don't understand why their mother and father take them to the party together. I think that it is not good that a half-brother and half-sister met each other when they are children. The scene of the railroad track where father and his divorced wife talk is deeply impressive. I feel sorrowful because the season of winter is added to the scene. However, the girls are very cute. The blonde hair and the dress are charming. The party looks lively and happy, therefore I want to join such a party. I like the party scene.

This film represents excessive jealousy which is by children to their parents very well. I can't understand the conversation which was held by the dad and mysterious women. That is to say I could follow the girl. It is interesting that I feel something unpleasant to her even though I don't understand their conversation. This was taken by unique angle of the camera. I can see a part of the body most of the time. It is serious and full of meaning. Besides, I could feel that I exist at the Christmas party. It is like I stand by there. I like the way of the camera. Ordinary people have a jealousy, which looks like graceless. However, I found that jealousy is not ugly, it's beautiful by watching this film. I could say the jealousy is the best of humanity's feelings. We have to pass the jealousy to grow up. As a result, we might forget the way of representing jealousy like the girl did.

In a Christmas season, father in a family, go out railway with his two children. At there, a woman waits with two children, about the same age as his daughter. The children go a holiday's party with them.

The children of two girls in this story are look like exactly the same without of the character. It is very complex facts for children. I guess the father maybe hides the fact for his wife and the woman might ask a favor hardly to him, playing with the children just one day. The girl wearing on a dress feels jealousy to the girl who treating kind by his father. I know she is also wants to give much love by his father. It is really sad, and I almost crying.

If I were the husband, I won't meet the children together. It will stress for me. Of course, this is his responsibility, but he smokes cigarette often at the film. It might be connected in the title Gasman. He must be felt a big stress.

Parents just hope the children's happiness. The story is real about the adult problem. I don't want children also learn and worry about it. However, I also feel sympathy toward the father's acts. I recommend people to watch the movie, before they are marry. It's valuable time to watch.

A father, his daughter (Lynne) and his son (Steven) go to a Christmas party with a woman's daughter and son who look like almost the same age as them. This short film describes the children's sensitive mind. Lynne is jealous of the other girl for sitting on her father's lap, while the girl feels sad and lonely because there are not her parents and there are many strangers in the party. When I was a child, I felt a little jealous of other girls for talking with my father and also I felt lonely when there were not my parents around me, therefore I understand their feeling well. I cannot understand the father's feeling yet, however I would understand it in the future. I recommend everyone watching this film because it describes not only children's feeling but also parents' mind in an unusual situation and the audiences would watch it from children's and parents' viewpoint.

Gasman is the story on the day of the Christmas party. A little girl dressed up and goes to the party with her brother and father. On the way to the party, they meet a boy, a girl and a woman. A woman left her children with a man, and the story develops on the party. None of explanation, but perhaps these four children does not complete related by blood. There is something that is not understood, but it is effective to make interest for a spectator. I watched the film with a doubt, so I did not get sick. This film expresses the children's feeling well. The length of showing the child face is grate. It is consummate that how to get intervals. It is difficult to understand for me a bit. To tell the truth, I do not like such a complicated story, but it is interested. This is a very thoughtful film.

The music shows that this tale is a tale of the family of the time of Christmas. The boy is playing with the toy car and the girl has changed into the dress. Then, the father, the boy, and the girl went out. However, the mother's face is not projected on a screen. An unsteady motion of children feeling and confusion are often drawn. Although there are few words of characters, various feeling was mixed and confused touch has been transmitted. I was not able to understand this talk completely. It is because there is little conversation, and it has finished while the end has been ambiguous. I think this railway means walks along the way different from wives and children. The scene on which they are walking along the railroad, I was not able to understand well what is expressed. However, I could not well understand what the title of this movie expresses.