In cat-themed films, it is common to see the personality, emotions and connections that humans project on cats. In the movie, cats are observers of human society, a guide for humans to understand themselves, and their imagination of themselves.
Cat's eye looks at life
If you have a cat, cherish its short infancy. When the innocent big eyes gradually become the cold eyes of the bystanders, your heart must feel panicked: has it completely seen through me?
yes.
It knows all the secrets of the world.
Cassandra's Cat, Ažpřijdekocour, 1963
The pretense of the guests, the entry of thieves into the house, and, the husband's twilight. Nothing escapes the cat's eyes. In the movie Cassandra's Cat, the magician's cat can see through people's hearts after putting on their glasses.
Purple is the liar, red is the one in love, gray is the thief, and those who are yellow break the vow of marital fidelity.
"I Am a Cat" book illustration Natsume Soseki
And some cats, although they see through humans, choose not to talk about it. In "I Am a Cat" directed by Ichikawa Kun, a small intellectual who is "useless" raises a cat who listens to their vassals all day long.
Stills from the movie "I Am a Cat"
Men show off their knowledge and encounters with women; women flaunt their origins and men's strides. Their narrow-minded and self-righteous ideas even extend to cats.
"I Am a Cat" book - Natsume Soseki
The film is adapted from Natsume Soseki's famous "I Am a Cat", and Jin Yu is in front, which is inevitably criticized a lot. Although the dialogue is humorous and humorous, the needle is flawed, but the depiction of the cat only exposes the fact that the director himself does not have a cat, and the scene of the appearance of the cat is still from the height of human beings.
However, some of the shots from the cat's point of view are very interesting, very low angles, deformed pictures, and truly embody the original theme of cat eyes seeing humans.
The civet cat is in the human world
In addition to the Japanese, the French are also keen to use cats as the protagonists of movies, especially animated films. The three animations "Cats in Paris", "Avril and the Fictional World" and "The Grey Cat of the Jewish Elders" all portray cats as spiritual creatures.
Stills from the movie Cats in Paris
"Cats in Paris" uses an amazing imagination to project the distress of the adult world, but at the same time it is very suitable for children to watch.
Tino, the black cat, is the pet of the little girl Zoe during the day, and sneaks out at night to become the companion of the legendary righteous thief Nick.
Stills from the movie "The Grey Cat of the Jewish Elders"
The Grey Cat of the Jewish Elders looks at the religious world. The old man's cat suddenly began to speak human language because he had eaten a talking parrot. This was seen by the elders as an ominous phenomenon.
So he forbade his daughter to meet with pets. But in Algeria in the 1920s, there was more than just a talking and non-religious cat in conflict with Judaism—Russians looking for the origins of black Judaism, French colonists with white privileges, Muslim chiefs, and violent extremists without faith.
Through the cat's eyes and cat's mouth, human hypocrisy, pedantry, weakness, and innocence are hidden. This cat is more thorough and wiser than all the teachers and all the elders.
Stills from the movie Avril and the Fictional World
Cats also exist in the scientific world. In Avril and the Fictional World, history is rewritten, the Franco-Prussian War did not break out, and France always maintained its empire, and all famous scientists mysteriously disappeared.
The little girl Avril's parents and grandfather are scientists who invented a potion that makes biological knives and guns invincible, and Darwin, the talking pet cat, is their work.
In this animation, the cat is no longer just a bystander, it is the clue to the development of the story and the key to saving the human world. The emotion between it and its master makes human greed for power seem powerless.
Cats breed people
Cats are creatures that shuttle through various movies and use their cute appearance to stir up people's red dust. Abandoning the arrogance of Homo sapiens and re-observing the universe, you may find that you have greatly underestimated the orange cat begging for dried fish in the downstairs community.
Stills from the movie Bob the Stray Cat
In the movie "Bob the Stray Cat", James, a street artist tortured by drug addiction, is on the right track because of the stray cat Bob, who was accidentally adopted.
He had to buy food for the cat, take care of him, and house him, so he had to start cleaning up his life. And the inseparable Bob also brought success to James's street performances. James raised Bob, and Bob raised James.
The shooting scene of "The Old Man and the Cat"
The cat kept the owner. Not only in the material level, but also in the spiritual level. At the beginning of the movie "The Old Man and the Cat", the director used a very documentary lens to shoot the sad old people on the streets of New York.
Stills from The Old Man and the Cat
Harry, an old man who lives with his cat toto, loses his house because of the government's construction of a parking lot. He had to live in his son's house temporarily, but was complained about by his daughter-in-law. In this old man's life, the cat has become an ineffable spiritual sustenance.
The Old Man and the Cat movie poster
How to face aging? Harry took Toto to the seashore and ended his past with a road trip, accepting himself to start a new life. The old man is no longer miserable.
Stills from "The Teacher and the Stray Cat"
This warmth is even more pronounced in Japanese films. "The Teacher and the Stray Cat" also tells the story of the lonely old man and his cat. The old headmaster's wife has passed away, and the stray cats she raised during her lifetime often visit here and gaze in front of the statue.
The tall and eccentric old man did not like cats, and he blocked the door and scolded the cat impatiently, and finally drove the cat away. Only then did he realize that he who had driven away warmth was so eager for warmth.
The Teacher and the Stray Cat movie poster
He begins looking around for the cat, admitting that he misses his dead wife too much to face it. The old man who wrapped himself in himself, at the last moment, pulled out the loneliness hidden inside.
Stills from "If the Cat Disappeared from the World"
Cats carry human memories and emotions. In "If the Cat Disappears from the World", the terminally ill male protagonist makes a deal with the devil, and every day of life extension will make something in the world disappear.
The phone call disappears, so does the girlfriend I met because of the wrong phone call; the movie disappears, and the friends who met because of the movie disappear with it.
It turns out that all things are human relations. So when the cat also became a quid pro quo, he decided to give up. He is reluctant not only to spend time with his pets and family.
If there are no more memories and experiences in life, what is the point of it in itself? So, in fact, cats breed human life.
Edit: Yang