When it comes to Turkish tourism, most people probably think of hot air balloons and pamukkale.
Before opening the documentary "City of Cats", I didn't have much interest or yearning for the country of Turkey. While I'm curious about countries I haven't been to yet, turkey doesn't seem to have anything particularly appealing to me.
However, after watching Cat City, I was curious and interested in Turkey, or rather, the city of Istanbul, Turkey. Moreover, for me, Turkish tourism is not just a cured label like Pamukkale and hot air balloons, but an impression related to cats. Although traveling abroad is a seemingly distant thing at this moment (sigh), adding it to your travel wishlist and then taking a cloud trip on the screen can also be used as a meal replacement trip for self-amusement.
Istanbul, formerly known as Constantinople, is turkey's largest city and a world-famous tourist destination. In fact, in addition to the label of tourist destination, it is also a city of cats. In The City of Cats, I saw the stories of the street cats living in Istanbul. The city is cat-friendly, and most of the local residents have a warm love for cats.
This scene in the film really cute me.
"If a cat meows at your feet and looks up at you, that's the smile life gives you. These beautiful moments are our lucky moments and remind us that we are still alive. "This sentence at the end of "City of Cats" touched me very much.
It is a documentary about cats living in the "city of cats", Istanbul, Turkey. The whole film is only over an hour, there is no big ups and downs, but it is very healing to depict the story of cat lovers and all kinds of cats in the city - there are kind uncles who heal themselves and find happiness again in the process of taking care of stray cats, there are "noble" stray cats with uninhibited personalities who are picky eaters, and there are cat mothers who deal with people every day to get food in order to find food for the baby cats in the family...
In the film, there is an uncle who said that he fell into a low valley for a while, and his thoughts were gray, and he felt that his life was bleak. At that time, he met stray cats and began to take care of stray cats. In the process of taking care of stray cats, he unconsciously rekindled the hope of life. It looked as if he was taking care of the cats, and in fact the cats had healed him. Such a warm two-way healing story is always very heartwarming. Every time I see a story like this, I feel that although the world is a lot of times chaotic, fortunately, there are always some corners that are soft and lovely enough.
On the streets of Istanbul, you can see cats everywhere. They walk freely, live with people on an equal footing, and naturally integrate into the lives of the locals. They can act like an old friend, sit down in the seat opposite you and spend afternoon tea with you, or they can lazily lie by the harbor and watch the sunset at their own pace. Here, they can live comfortably and comfortably.
Of course, I understand that no city is perfect, and no story is always full of sunshine, but this film does present a cross-section to the audience warmly - where cats and people can live in harmony and coexist warmly. This is one of the few warm fragments in a cruel world.
When we can travel freely, we really want to go to Istanbul, Turkey, not only for the sake of travel check-in, but also to see the cats that roam the streets and alleys of the city, and watch the sunrise and sunset and cirrus clouds with them. Since it is impossible to become a cat, if you can go to the city of cats once, at a short and hurried pace, through the perspective of a cat, to see the world, it will probably be a very moving travel experience.
(This article is [Expired Travelogue] original, with picture sources for the headline number free image material library and "City of Cats" Douban page)