Une vie de chat

A Cat in Paris is touching, uplifting entertainment for the young and old. The young will like it for its extreme simplicity, in contrast to many bombastic, whiplash-inducing animated films of the last decade, and the old/older will appreciate it for its beauty and sound.

Prior to its Oscar nomination for Best Animated Feature, A Cat in Paris, or Une Vie De Chat, its French title, was seldom seen in America. Its animation style is gorgeous and instantly flashed me back to the big, colorful storybooks that were one of the dominant factors in my youth. The scenes look to be lifted directly from a large picture book, with its colors mixed and warm and its characters appearing like simple human-beings. I expected a watercolor style similar to Chico and Rita, another Best Animated Feature nominated from 2011, which had a heavy emphasis on character detail and environment artistry. A Cat in Paris seems more concerned with the environment and how it appears and feels as a whole, rather than the detail of it.

The film revolves around a young mute girl named Zoé, who lives with her workaholic mother named Jeanne and her black cat. Zoé feels constantly in a competition to get her mother's attention, and is in dismay when she reacts in anger to her collection of dead lizards brought home by the cat. Unknown to both Zoé and her mother is that their cat lives a double life; he assists Nico, a local jewelry burglar, in his late night heists. The cat sneaks out in the middle of the night to return home soundly the next morning and wind up in Zoé's arms. One day, Zoé, the adventurer she is, decides to sneak out and follow her cat to see where he goes, despite the cat's protest. The cat winds up leading her into a mess involving gangsters, searching for a rare, expensive statue. The result is a cute, lively cops and robbers film providing goofy laughs and delightfully whimsical material.

The jazzy soundtrack is instantly lovable, the action is in short bursts and surprisingly fluent, the animation is easy on the eyes, and the fifties look and feel is all present. A Cat in Paris is a film of low-key charm, beautifully rendered images, and a series of lovable little nuances all captured within a slender fifty-eight minute runtime. Perhaps, due to its shadowy effect and gorgeous style, you could refer to this as "animation-noir."

Voiced by: Dominique Blanc, Bruno Salomone, Jean Benguigui, Bernadette Lafont, Oriane Zani, and Bernard Bouillon. Directed by: Jean-Loup Felicioli and Alain Gagnol.

Having most recently been seduced by Paris in The Artist and Midnight in Paris and before that in animation with The Illusionist and Triplets of Belleville, I was fully prepared to enjoy A Cat In Paris, a nominee for Best Animated Feature Oscar, worthy of the award even with competition like Chico & Rita. I was not disappointed.

This cute, un-Pixar thriller depicts a cat accompanying a cat-burglar at night over the rooftops of Paris and into apartments ripe for the plucking with his accomplice, Nico (Bruno Salomone voice). The owner of the crafty cat, Zoe (Oriane Zani), lives with her chief of Police mother Jeanne (Dominique Blanc), both of whom are still mourning the loss of dad/husband at the hands of arch-villain Victor Costa (Jean Benguigui). The plot does not make this a memorable cartoon; it's the whimsical slit-eyed, long-nosed eccentrics who inhabit the flat pastel world, slim on speech and graceful even when they're thugs. It's a fantasy of our imagination, what we dream Paris would be like in a better world, even with burglars and mobsters.

An interesting touch is to make the cat tough rather than tender and Zoe mute for the shock of her father's death. The tonal shifts between that darkness and then silly thugs and a sweet cat burglar, who doesn't seem to be punished for his crime, will make this a problematic choice for kids, who might not get it. Parents may find it difficult to decide if this is a thriller or a comedy as well.

For me, it's just the exotic world of Paris in my imagination. Nothing beats swinging over the rooftops at anytime with anyone, even a mischievous cat.

At 70 minutes, "A Cat in Paris" is the little film that could. The hand-drawn animated film packs a surprising amount of action and pathos into a children's cartoon and weaves a fairly rich back story that lends heft to the battle that unfolds between a cat burglar and the cat he shares with the local police chief versus the leader of a ring of art thieves. Leave it to the French to give the older child target audience some real narrative meat to chew on - although the action can be a little rough at times and some scenes will clearly scare younger viewers. The hand-drawn animation technique amplifies the scare factor but equally amplifies the warmth factor with scenes of the Dino the cat (and cat burglar)sinuously jumping from Parisian rooftop to rooftop approaching art. While the film is mostly beautiful to look at there are some plot problems such as the movie never stopping to explain how the older, puffy antagonist can keep up with our experienced cat burglar and his feline accomplice step-for-step across the Paris skyline. Also, action scenes too heavily dominate the run-time so at times it feels like Mel Gibson action movies from the 1990's. In short, the brief run time and a lack of memorable characters recommend it to a rental rather than a $12 a kid multiplex visit but it is a charming little film.

French animation has a certain stylish aesthetic. From the Gallic influenced 'Pink Panther' and 'Inspector Clouseau' cartoons to the films of Sylvain Chomet such as Belleville Rendezvous and The Illusionist, French animation has a definite look and feel. A Cat in Paris very much fits into this category. Its appeal lies almost exclusively in its French aesthetic.

Its story has three plot strands: a single mum and her daughter, their cat and a burglar and a gang of crooks. All the stories ultimately converge. In all honesty the story and characters aren't especially interesting. This is the weakness of the film. However, its strength lies in its animation and look. It's an old-style cartoon done in the traditional way. It isn't CGI and this is to its benefit. It has lots more heart and soul than the slick computer generated stuff we mainly see nowadays. The characters are simply drawn, resembling some forms of primitive art. The Paris they inhabit is beautifully presented. This city is such a knockout that it always looks terrific when animated, it really seems ideal for the treatment. Here is no exception, with the buildings lovingly depicted and the night-time rooftops romantically illustrated. The atmosphere created by the animation is very appealing.

This is a good feature. It's not up to the standard of Sylvain Chomet's work but it is certainly operating from a similar place. If you appreciate traditional animation or more specifically French animation, then this is a feature well worth catching.

The least familiar of the 2011 Academy Award for Best Animated Feature, this is a French film (originally just titled A Cat's Life) made with traditional animation. The style is similar to some other recent foreign animated features like The Secret of Kells and Persepolis, with a lot of exaggerated backgrounds and simply designed characters (sometimes they even look like figures from Picasso's cubist period). The best thing about the film is its beautiful use of colors, which are truly stunning. The film is always a joy to look at. Story-wise, though, it's nothing too special. It's a basic crime film spoof. The titular cat leads a double life, living with a young girl during the day but venturing out with a cat burglar neighbor at night. The girl's father, a police officer, has recently been killed by a gangster, and now her mother, also a police officer, is on the gangster's trail. Eventually the girl, being chased by the gangster, is aided by the cat burglar. The villain is pretty dull. In fact, most of the characters are pretty uninteresting, with the possible exception of the burglar, whose nimble acrobatics are fun to watch. It doesn't even run 70 minutes, though, so its pleasures definitely outweigh its flaws by the end. It's well worth checking out if you're an animation fan.