Chacun cherche son chat (1996)
Directed by Cédric Klapisch

Film Review

With its familiar urban setting, in an ordinary area of Paris, and naturalistic performances (helped by the fact that most of the cast are non-professional actors), Chacun cherche son chat is less a story about a young woman's quest to find her lost cat and more a portrait about the morals and attitudes of contemporary society.   The trivial story about the missing cat is really just a pretext for director Cédric Klapisch to examine the psychology and responses of individuals living in a cloistered metropolitan environment.  This may not sound like a promising recipe for a good film, but Klapisch's flair for capturing real-life situations on film, in a way that is familiar yet somehow fresh and invigorating, makes this an entertaining and thought-provoking film. It is a worthy follow-up to Klapisch's first two features, Riens du tout (1992) and Le Péril jeune (1994).

Garance Clavel's performance as Chloé is appropriately subdued but the young actress provides an essential pivot around which the drama (such as it is), and the more colourful characters, revolve.  The richness of Parisian society is reflected in this film to a far greater extent than many modern French films, including representations from a dizzying diversity of races, professions, ages and lifestyles.  The film's star, if there is one, has to be the formidable Renée Le Calm, an arthritic septuagenarian who out-does her younger co-stars in charisma, charm and energy.  Hers is a performance that is not easy to forget - for the simple reason that (like many characters in the film, being a non-professional actor) she is playing herself.

Klapisch originally envisaged this film to be a short film running to around 20 minutes, but he extended it when he discovered the wealth of material he had in the minor characters.  Unfortunately, this is all too noticeable in the final film, and it is the array of minor characters (most notably the army of elderly women who are galvanised into action to find the lost cat) which dominate the film, to the extent that the main characters often disappear from view too often and for too long.  Depending on your attitude to contemporary European cinema, this is either a minor blemish or a major fault.  However, it is undoubtedly true that Klapisch shows great originality and panache in his filming, transforming a mundane plot into a multi-faceted study of contemporary life, sometimes comic, sometimes contemplative, yet constantly Klapisch.

Film Synopsis

Chloé is a young make-up assistant living in Paris.  She shares an apartment with a gay friend Michel and her treasured cat Gris-Gris.  Before setting off on her holidays, Chloé takes care to leave her pet with someone she can trust, an elderly neighbour named Madame Renée, who adores cats and has had several of her own.  When Chloé returns she is greeted with the terrible news that her cat has gone missing.  Without delay, she embarks on a frantic search for the stray animal, enlisting as she does so the help of her friends Michel and Djamel, and pretty well all of the old women in the area.  After an anxious period of waiting comes the terrible news that a cat meeting the description of Chloé's pet has been found dead in an area of wasteland.  To the young woman's relief it is not Gris-Gris.  Djamel then risks his neck trying to reach a cat on a roof - again another false alarm.  With what seems like half of Paris busy looking for her cat, Chloé embarks on another quest - to find her ideal soul mate.  She has more chance of finding her cat...