WHEN THE CAT'S AWAY
A film review by David N. Butterworth
Copyright 1997 David N. Butterworth/The Summer Pennsylvanian
Rating: *** (Maltin scale)
Leave it to the French to take an idea as simple as a young woman searching for her lost cat and turn it into an evocation of life, love, and the big city.
More specifically, credit first-time writer/director Cedric Klapisch, his leading actress Garance Clavel, and a fine assortment of non-actors who give "When the Cat's Away," above all, a true heart. Oh, and let's not forget Arapimou who plays Gris-Gris, the missing feline at the center of this largely improvisational piece, who's credited above most of the real life performers!
Clavel plays Chloe, a "small, slightly pale brunette who wears tight jeans." Twentysomething and sick to the nines of her workaday job as a makeup artist, Chloe longs for a vacation, but there's a snag--her beloved cat, Gris-Gris. No one is willing, or able, to catsit him for the week. Including her gay roomate, Michel (Olivier Py), who jokingly suggests she "chuck him out of a car." Including a friend for whom Chloe watered the plants at Easter. In fact, no one. (If you've ever had pets, you'll understand the difficulties in offloading them during the holidays.)
Finally Chloe finds relief in the form of a batty old lady, Madame Renee (Renee LeCalm), who runs a cathouse of a less lascivious kind. When Chloe returns from her trip, however, Gris-Gris is "perdu," and the hunt for the inappropriately named animal (Gris-Gris is unquestionably black) is on.
What began as a short subject has been expanded by director Klapisch, who uses the storyline as a springboard for showing us the changing face of Paris. Gentrification is hitting the city and hitting it hard. Cafes that sell cups of coffee for four francs are being knocked down to make room for coffeehouses that sell them for ten. Music stores are being replaced with high-priced boutiques. Small, family-run businesses are giving way to large, impersonal supermarkets. Tenants are being evicted every which way in order to accomodate unchecked urban growth.
The metropolitan landscape might be succumbing to the wrecker's ball but the inhabitants are harder to displace. Klapisch weaves a colorful tapestry in his depiction of Chloe's neighbors, colleagues, and cat-lovers, from the dotty old women who form a cross-city network of concerned persons (including the head of "Cats Are People, Too"), to Michel's revolving lovers, to a mysterious drummer who catches Chloe's eye. In addition, there are the rough-edged inhabitants of the local watering hole, including the dim-witted Djamel (Zinedine Soualem, who resembles an emaciated Tom Jones), who accompanies Chloe on most of her circuitous adventures. He even offers to take her to the seaside...but that's how she got into this mess to begin with.
Newcomer Clavel is tremendous as Chloe, convincingly portraying a woman battling a sense of loss and loneliness. Her attempts to find true love on the streets and in the nightclubs of a pulsating Paris are marked both by sadness and humor. "When the Cat's Away" is most successful at blending these elements in a way that resists easy interpretation: with whom should Chloe ultimately wind up, and is her cat really partner enough? That said, the film's final image of a joyous Chloe running down the street is remarkable. It's likely to stay with the viewer for a long, long time.
-- David N. Butterworth dnb@mail.med.upenn.edu
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews