Felidae (1994)

Horrors East of Aristocats.

Cats are superior to humans; just ask any dog. But does that necessarily make them better creatures? Not necessarily, as Francis, this story's feline hero, discovers soon after having moved to a new home with his human pal Gustav. Equally annoyed by the laboratory smells of their new house and eager to get to know the rest of his new neighborhood, Francis decides to take a walk - and walks right into the discovery of a dead cat and, by virtue of that discovery, also into the guy who instantaneously becomes his new best friend. And as gruff old Bluebeard, Francis's new side kick explains to him, this is not the only dead cat he has recently seen. In fact, "cold bags" (cat corpses) have turned up in the neighborhood with an alarming frequency, all killed expertly and quickly by a bite to their necks. And their appearance somehow seems to coincide with the arrival of an exotic, wild, self-described "very ancient but very new" breed of cats whose females are, Francis is soon to discover, as seductive as they are angels of death to any male cat mating with them.

Chased by the local bully, King Kong, and his two brainless minions Hermann 1 and Hermann 2, and haunted by nightmares of being jerked around by puppet master Gregor Mendel (the Austrian monk who, in the late 19th century, first came up with the basic biological principles on breeding and inheritance of genes), Francis almost stumbles into the reunion of a secret sect honoring a certain Claudandus, mysterious savior of all cats' misery on earth who alone escaped a cruel series of experiments performed in the very house Francis now calls his home. But while sect members pay tribute to Claudandus's memory by the macabre practice of jumping into the electric current produced by two open wires, this is not the cause of the feline population's demise; although the figure of Claudandus undeniably has something to do with it. With his human buddy and (in Bluebeard's lingo) "tin opener" Gustav completely oblivious to the horrors Francis must witness and investigate, our feline sleuth is left to his own wits - at least until Bluebeard introduces him to Pascal, the neighborhood's other "smart [cat]."

Never mind the format of an animated movie: this is an intelligently crafted thriller and, at the same time, a story that every cat lover will relish. Author Akif Pirincci, who wrote the book on which this movie is based, says that it was inspired by his own cats; and he certainly brings to it as much talent as a writer as understanding for our four-pawed friends. "Felidae," both the book and the movie, easily stands its ground not only next to other (and, in the States, better-known) cat detective stories such as those by Lillian Jackson Braun, but next to the great thrillers involving human detectives as well.

The animated movie brings Pirincci's story of, as his hero Francis once says, "horrors east of Aristocats" to life with the help of a number of actors well-chosen to portray the book's characters; among them in the original German version, Ulrich Tukur as Francis and Mario Adorf as Bluebeard (although the casting of others, particularly of Klaus-Maria Brandauer, is such a reinforcement of their cliché roles that it is almost a dead give-away... so it may be a wise choice to watch the movie only after having read the book; I promise you'll still enjoy it). And who knows... with the book itself, which is the first of a series, still immensely popular in Europe, and the series's most recent installment released there only a few months ago, maybe there will be another chance for a U.S. print edition of "Felidae" and its sequels some time in the future, too. My cats and I would certainly hope so!

Also recommended:
Felidae
Felidae on the Road
Cat Sense July 10, 2008

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