Kedi [Cat] (2016)

directed by Ceyda Torun
Turkey
79 minutes
4 stars out of 5
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If you ever find yourself considering the plight of humanity, then this is the film for you, because while we may be having a time of it right now, these lovely, beautiful, and talented street cats in Istanbul are not. Possibly there are cats in the city that don't have it as good as the ones in this film, possibly it's an unfair depiction of feline life. But it sure looks like the grand majority of them get taken care of like finicky pets who refuse to come inside.

This movie is as simple as the title implies, it really doesn't employ any special tricks or narratives to show the furriest citizens of Istanbul and the people who love them. You can even overlook the fact that it's a YouTube Red Original Movie (perhaps the only decent one?). This is a well-made and very warm-feeling portrait of a city through the eyes of those animals who live there "incidentally", who weren't brought there on purpose but who nevertheless made it home and continue to live alongside humans in a sort of semi-domesticated state- whatever it is, it feels wrong to call them "feral".

What struck me about the relationship between the cats and the people is that like I just said, the cats weren't something that was intentionally put into the city for the humans' benefit. We build movie theaters, fancy restaurants, bars, clubs, spas, salons, and anything else you could possibly think of in cities for our own amusement, and you could argue that we've brought dogs along as companions too. But the cats are just there for themselves, and the fact that people enjoy petting them, feeding them, and taking care of them is something that neither the people nor the cats seem to have planned, though everybody profits from it. We think about ancient Egyptian civilization as being the OG cat lovers, but from what I understand, there wasn't a whole lot of "owning" cats going on then, and the situation was much like in this film- cats went around and did what they wanted, and humans admired and cared for them, but only a few people actually kept cats like pets.

 It's adorable to see how every kitty has their own personality, usually inherent to them but supplemented by these mythologies that the humans made up- this one's a ladies' man, this one is tough, this one's a big baby, etc. It's lovely to see so many grown adults enjoying themselves in a lighthearted manner. The people gain something wonderful from living with the cats, and this documentary makes you wonder which of the two benefits the most from their interactions.