A Cat in Paris (2011) directed by Jean-Loup Flicioli and Alain Gagnol

Pulled out of relative obscurity by an Academy Award nomination for "Best Animated Feature" in 2011, 'A Cat in Paris' as it is known in English is slightly better served by its original French title translated quite obviously as 'A Cat's Life' as its based on the long held fantastical idea that when cats go out at night after lounging about lazily all through the day, perhaps, just perhaps mind you...they go out and have amazing adventures the likes of which we can only imagine. In this case it's quite true as the cat in question spends his evenings running around the shadowy Parisian roof tops with the kindly and incredibly nimble cat-burglar Nico, helping him to lift jewelry and trinkets from all manner of well-guarded locations. But by day the cat returns to a little girl named Zoe, bringing her typical cat gifts of dead lizards n' such, and comforting her as best he can.

Sadly Zoe is in great need of comfort as despite her outwardly friendly demeanor she has retreated into silence as she has not spoken a word since her father was brutally murdered by a vicious gangster named Nico. She attempts to seek comfort in the arms of her mother Jeanne, but she is all too often unintentionally pushed to the side by Jeanne's busy work life. You see...Jeanne is the police commissioner and despite her typically busy work life, she is quite naturally obsessed with tracking down Nico and bringing him to justice for the murder of her husband. Though she does try to comfort Zoe as best she can and put up a strong and determine front, unknown to Zoe she is herself fighting the lonely fight of sinking into a dark depression as the imagined dark and insidious specter of Nico often attacks her during moments in which she finds herself the most vulnerable which continuously chip away at her resolve.

As sad as all that sounds, it's merely a wonderfully realized bit of character building against a backdrop of excitement and danger as the world of all these people collides little realizing how much of their worlds overlap each other. Clocking in at just an hour's worth of animation, despite the film's rather brisk narrative pace, it never really feels rushed because of the wonderful way in which Zoe and Jeanne are depicted with Zoe conveying much of her angst in her large expressive face but more importantly her body language, and Jeanne suffering under more literal representations of her fears as well as actual situational moments of dread and fear.

The film is wonderfully hand drawn in a delightfully modernist type of impressionism which serves greatly to enhance the character of Nico as he's defined by his ability to ebb and flow with any situation as he moves and jumps fluidly like a colorful bit of sentient water around people and through the roof tops. The film does tread a fine line between humor and drama quite tenuously at times as it presents harrowing, life threatening situations and juxtaposes these with bits of strange humor, quite a bit of this somewhat unusually emanating from Nico and his bumbling crew of hardened thugs. This is an odd choice considering they're the source of pain and suffering to others and though you would think this might serve to undermine their integrity as a viable threat, it actually works quite well to offset the sadness that Zoe and her mom are suffering from whilst fleshing out the character of the bad guys and truly demonstrating Nico as much more than one-dimensional gangster tough guy.

I wouldn't say 'A Cat in Paris' is an amazing film as the film is a little light in content to allow for that. But it is quite obviously a work of love from its creators and it shows by wearing its heart on its sleeve and achieving quite a lot in a very little time. It's hand drawn art design is wonderfully animated and helps to convey the beauty and the terror of its noir influenced world while the high adventure aspects of it bring the film to a satisfactory conclusion. It may not be perfect, but it's damn enjoyable and I can't even express to you how happy I was to finally catch it on the big screen.