Review of The Rabbi's Cat (2011) by Edgar C — 23 Nov 2013

Intertwining psedo-intellectual/philosophical discussions with fundamentalist slices of the Jewish, Russian, Arab and French cultures, Le Chat du Rabbin is an odd and unbalanced, yet interesting vehicle of satirical comedy and controversial humor without the discretion or the charm of a Persepolis (2007), but with an interestingly unforgiving lack of mercy towards fanatical believers and authority figures.

My main concern is that the film is split into uneven chapters, having troubles with the distribution of the leading and secondary roles, and with a plot suddenly becoming a cross-continental journey with no epic or adventurous spirit, but with random events seemingly being included for the purpose of narrow-minded criticism instead. Of course these religions deviated from God's Word are worth the criticism and questioning of their own religious logic, especially because of the harm, violence and lies they execute in today's society, but if one of the purposes was indeed satire or criticism (maybe a combination of both), the film offers no proposal or reflection at all, like a boy that throws a stone at an adult's back and hides his hand before the adult can turn.

Nevertheless, these animation attempts are still strongly encouraged, even by me, so it's better that they keep showing up. The French animation industry was close to dying before the 2000s.

65/100.