While some theaters this summer have shown images of an exploding TV to counter-attack against watching movies at home, a film like A Cat in Paris is a much more persuasive argument. The rich color, smart imagery, and unique instability of frame-to-frame animation in this little movie are as strong an argument for the big screen as need be made.
In fact, I would have almost been content with no dialog at all in this visionfest of a film. Nearly every unique frame is interesting and engaging, whether it’s the images of characters dancing across rooftops and up gutters or fantasy scenes of a menacing octopus or a rampaging African figurine. The animation of night, when most of the film occurs, lets the artists create contrast and shadows that give the film depth. In fact, I almost mistook the opening for 3-D. Many of the images have witty content, too. There’s a clever reference to the cat and the moon, and the tour-de-force ending has an intelligent reference to King Kong as well as kung fu movies and Victor Hugo. In the fluid freedom that directors Felicioli and Gagnol find in this animation, a long-suffering pooch experiences visually-varied ways to suffer, and character movement is more a flow than a mechanical change of position. The film’s wit and freedom are on special display in a night scene where characters in the dark are at first invisible, then seen from the cat’s perspective as outlines, then seen as Picasso-like shapes as the outlines shift. And throughout the film, the hand-drawn frames fail to match up exactly, giving the film a continually changing, unstable quality even as the overall gist of the action remains quite clear. A Cat in Paris is a visual delight.
That’s not to say that there aren’t some problems here. The tone of the film is uneven, jumping too quickly from one extreme emotion to another. This is especially true of the mother and of Costa, the villain. In fact, Costa is even distracting at times, stretching out his rants a bit too long and raving unimpressively. And not only is Costa not up to par, but the film starts grinding gears when he’s on screen too long. His pursuit of Zoe could have been another of the several intense, bravura set pieces of the film, but Costa stops the scene and dilutes its energy with a silly berating of one of his hapless flunkies. And this gang of accomplices adds little humor or sympathy as a whole.
I also wondered if there’s a problem with the translation. I watched the English version of the film, and some of the lines had the awkward feeling of animee translations. And most of the English vocal talent lacks the range that might complement the visuals of the movie. I especially wonder whether the failure of Costa for me is actually the failure of voice actor JB Blanc.
Despite these problems of tone, range and pacing, A Cat in Paris is a very worthwhile investment of time. The visuals and the intelligence of the animation more than compensate for whatever other directorial misjudgments there are.
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