Un gatto a Parigi

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.

Even when "A cat in Paris" isn't at the same level of animated masterpieces as "The Triplets of Belleville" or "Persepolis", certainly it is a much better film for the whole family than most of the awful stuff produced by Hollywood in the recent years.

The animation of this film is neat, with a great atmosphere and beautiful sceneries. Also, even when the character's designs seem to be quite simple at first sight, they are actually quite stylish and well made.

The story, without being spectacular, never fails to entertain, keeping a good pace from beginning to end.

While this film is clearly aimed to kids, I think that the adults will find "A cat in Paris" to be quite enjoyable, mostly because it is a way more mature and sober movie for the family viewing.

A simple story, almost cliché, but nicely done. The story has a well done form. The execution is beautiful. You have a little bit of everything here without making a mess. I loved it. And I loved it even more after seeing the bonus track with the other versions, more dark, more violent. It succeeds at making a child movie which is fun to watch for an adult. And it can be considered an adult light story that can be seen by children as well. A wonderful depart from the big budget animations from DreamWorks and DisneyPixar. So history seems to repeat itself. You have the big budget, nicely polished, yet silly and pointless Cars. And you have smaller, apparently independent European movies like this one. Bravo!

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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.