Cat People (1942)

directed by Jacques Tourneur

USA

73 minutes

4.5 stars out of 5

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I recently read a book on the history of horror poster art, and its extensive section on the art of classic horror films made me realize that there's a lot of pre-1950s stuff I just haven't seen. So, I've been taking care of that lately. Cat People is a film that resists classification and does not entirely fit within the label of "horror" in the way one might typically think about the genre, especially in an era when the horror films being released contained such predictable tropes that it eventually led to a bit of a burn-out around the middle of the 20th century. But what it is is an incredibly subtle story executed with an unusual sympathy and care for its main character, and a film that ends up being more quietly devastating than many others of its era I have seen.

We're introduced to our main character, Irena, by seeing her sketching a panther at a zoo, apparently unsuccessfully as she repeatedly tears up and discards her drawings. We're also, at this time, introduced to the man who will later become her husband, when he chides her for littering - valid; we all hate litterbugs, but also a bit of foreshadowing in that their first interaction isn't your typical meet-cute but rather him telling her what to do. He also doesn't do anything that shows genuine interest in her, like un-crumple one of the drawings and remark that she's really quite good even if she doesn't think she is. In fact, he seems pretty uninvolved in her work as a whole, leaving one of the sketches to be blown around with the leaves. His concern is mostly for putting her in her place - gently and amicably, but again: foreshadowing. From the first moment, it's made very clear that Irena sees a part of herself in the panther she's trying to sketch; throughout the film she will be drawn to it while also repelled by it, not wanting to acknowledge what of herself she sees in it.

Irena and Oliver, the man from the zoo, get married pretty fast, but she seems ill at ease from the start. Eventually she tells him about a story that's held as truth in the Serbian village she comes from: during a period of rule by outside invaders, her people had become wicked, and some of the village women had the ability to shape-shift into large cats, an ability triggered by strong feelings like rage, jealousy, or romance. Because Irena believes this legend is a part of her ancestry, she's been afraid to get close to anyone romantically. But there's something much larger than a simple fear of intimacy at play here, something much more fundamentally human.

The focus is not on Irena as a literal cat-person. It is very explicit that the things she's talking about are really happening to her, but the fact that she is turning into an actual cat is only secondary to the real point here. Irena's becoming a cat is used as a sort of half-metaphor for her deep insecurity. The panther she keeps returning to is a reflection of an inner wildness that she represses out of fear. This is not a movie about a temptress stalking her prey, it's a movie about a person who is anxious about her place in the world and has a deep-seated feeling of inferiority that dictates her whole life - and, importantly, it's also about a woman who is failed by pretty much everyone around her as they let themselves keep seeing her as a simple, silly girl instead of the human in need of understanding that she really is.

I didn't realize it until the next morning after I had watched this film, but the reason why Cat People feels so distinct from every other film surrounding it is because Irena's role is not written or played as the kind of cliche '40s femme fatale that so many other movies might have pigeonholed her into being. There is absolutely nothing seductive about her: her situation is not used as something to titillate outsiders, the entire thrust of the film is about her inner life and turmoil. This is a stance on women that we do not often see from films of the era. It's difficult even to find movies that are about women from this time period, let alone ones that deal with women's fears in such a deep and empathetic way. 

It's so frustrating the way that nobody around Irena believes anything she says at all. The narrative itself is the only thing sympathetic to her. Her husband is not a bad man, but he behaves in a way that makes it very clear that he's more infatuated with his idea of her - this is something that is also a huge part of Irena's own anxieties, that she has to perform the specific role of a woman that men are attracted to and deny her own individualism. She talks about envying every single woman she sees on the street because she ascribes to them a life of perfection, of pleasing their husbands, of being what a woman should be - something Irena feels like she isn't. Oliver might be a loving husband but he's not in love with her. Eventually he seems to get bored of Irena not being the ideal wife, and his attention drifts towards a woman who seems more outwardly put-together. Interestingly, the blame is not cast on this other woman per se; she's not even really a huge part of the film, just sort of another normal, regular person who Irena sees as an insurmountable Other that she, herself, is fundamentally different from. The film is so upsetting because Irena manages to get to and past a point of no return without a single person recognizing the pain in her. She spends the whole film convinced, with increasing surety, that something is wrong with her.

I guess I've kind of read a lot into this one in feminist terms. I realize that this may turn some people off or that I risk shoehorning this into a specific niche, but honestly I don't care too much about that (if feminist interpretations of film are something you don't want to see, I'm not writing for you, anyway). This is also, on its own, just a great film, one that seems to have been much-maligned at its time of release but thankfully has earned a better reputation over the years. Simone Simon - a prolific actress who I had somehow not heard of until now - is perfect in the lead role; her being so unassuming is, again, another point where the film thwarts the possibility of her being used as a kind of sexualized being for viewers' consumption. Overall I don't know if this was intended to be such a spotlight on personal insecurities and fears and on the way no one will listen to women, but that's what I'm getting from it. It's a film that has a lot of subtext, and subtext is not always a popular thing. I feel like this is something that would benefit from repeated watches with an eye for different angles of its story. But even my first watch, I could tell this was something new.