The Rabbi's Cat

 (2011)

The Rabbi's Cat Blu-ray delivers stunning video and audio in this excellent Blu-ray release
Algiers, 1920s. Rabbi Sfar has more than one problem. His beautiful daughter Zlabya is becoming a teenager and above all, his parrot-killing cat has just started talking. The delivery of a box from Russia further complicates things when a painter is discovered inside, more dead than alive. He is on a quest for a hidden tribe and its mythical city in Africa. Convinced that the city exists, he sets off on an incredible adventure, taking with him the Rabbi, his cat, a wise old Arab Sheikh and an eccentric Russian millionaire.

For more about The Rabbi's Cat and The Rabbi's Cat Blu-ray release, see The Rabbi's Cat Blu-ray Review

Director: Joann Sfar

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The Rabbi's Cat Blu-ray Review

Cat got your tongue?

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman, May 4, 2013

Jews don't like dogs? Perish the thought! Now in full disclosure mode I'm only half Jewish but I have never been without at least one dog for more than a few days for my entire life (and for most of my adult life I've always had two), and my wife, who is completely Jewish, is exactly the same. Of course when the titular character of the charming French animated film The Rabbi's Cat makes the point in some early narration that Jews don't like dogs, the feline is actually speaking more or less metaphorically. The cat avers that his owner has told him that Jews prefer cats because collectively they as a people have been "barked at" by so many for so long. That of course is something that should be firmly categorized under the heading "poetic license", and after all, wouldn't it be perfectly reasonable to assume a cat would say that people prefer cats over dogs, irrespective of their cultural heritages? The Rabbi's Cat is the brainchild of Joann Sfar (a male), a French comic book author who perhaps rather incredibly also wrote and directed the wonderful Gainsbourg: A Heroic Life, a fanciful biographical film about Serge Gainsbourg, the French agent provocateur who stormed the international music charts with the lovely (if just slightly naughty in its original version) "Je t'aime. . .mois non plus". (See my Gainsbourg: A Heroic Life Blu-ray review for more information about that tune as well as Gainsbourg in general.) Many of Sfar's literary works exploit his Jewish heritage, and in the case of Sfar, it's a rather interesting one. One of Sfar's parents is an Ashkenazi Jew while the other is a Sephardic Jew. For those of you unschooled in the oftentimes convoluted history of Judaism, Ashkenazi Jews tend to come from Eastern Europe (though many ultimately settled in Germany), while Sephardic Jews tend to come from Spain, Portugal and Northern Africa. The two "subgroups" have radically different cultures, worship styles, music (Sephardic music is incredibly evocative), and even languages (Sephardim tend to speak a highly distinctive tongue known as Ladino, which is a heady brew of Spanish, Hebrew, Turkish and even other elements like French.)



Perhaps due to the dialectic between Sfar's Ashkenazi and Sephardic roots, the issue of Jewish identity is front and center throughout much of The Rabbi's Cat, especially once the cat swallows the rabbi's parrot and magically becomes able to talk. While we've already heard the cat narrating the proceedings, once he's able to actually communicate with the humans around him, he starts asking a lot of impertinent questions, like whether he is Jewish simply because his owners are. While the rabbi assures him he is (despite the absence of having been circumcised), the cat decides he wants to have a Bar Mitzvah just to make everything official. That in turn causes a number of problems for the rabbi, who turns to his rabbi for counsel.

Other issues of identity come into play, including the rabbi meeting his Muslim cousin, both of whom worship the same ancestor but who each insists is of their personal religion. Later, during the larger second "episode" of the film (which is culled from several of Sfar's comics), another identity issue arises when a crate full of Jewish holy books from Russia turns out to have an unexpected stowaway inside, a young Russian man who is on a quest to find a lost Jewish tribe in Ethiopia. That sets the rabbi and several adventurers out into lands full of people who are even less well disposed to Jews than some of the "civilized" people in Algiers, where the rabbi lives.

The Rabbi's Cat may strike some who are only schooled in American animated features as a rather odd piece, perhaps in a similar way to how some people first react to Studio Ghibli films. This outing does not have a traditional "three act" arc, and the story is just a kind of loose knit assemblage of episodes. There's also not a whole whale of a lot of logic to how and when the cat speaks and doesn't, and in fact even when the cat has supposedly lost his ability to communicate, he is still able to speak with certain characters, and remains the narrator through the entire film no matter what is happening within the context of the story. But The Rabbi's Cat is a fascinating piece that delves into some pretty weighty matters (including a little nod toward our current issues with Islamic extremism and jihadists) while never losing its fundamentally whimsical demeanor.

Due to a couple of moments of violence which burst suddenly into the overall breezy ambience of the film, as well as some recurrent themes of anti-Semitism which may be hard to explain to tots, this is not something I'd personally recommend for younger children, at least until parents have had a chance to pre-screen and make sure it's appropriate for their particular kids. But for discerning adults who are open to something highly stylized and occasionally quite insightful into the human condition, The Rabbi's Cat is a wonderful treat that will hopefully enjoy at least nine lives.

Note: The Rabbi's Cat won the César Award for Best Animated Feature.

The Rabbi's Cat Blu-ray, Video Quality

 

The Rabbi's Cat is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of New Video Group with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.85:1. New Video has brought out some really unusual looking animated fare lately, including Tales of the Night, A Cat in Paris and the especially lovely Chico & Rita, and The Rabbi's Cat makes a very appealing companion piece to this growing group. The animation style here is fairly whimsical. I'd compare the creature designs to the old DePatie Freleng pieces from the 1960s and beyond, notably their iconic Pink Panther franchise. The humans are a varied lot, but kind of look like "kinder, gentler" version of Edward Gorey characters at times. The Byzantine backgrounds are incredible, with lots of arabesques and intersecting patterns that are so evocative of Algiers. Colors are bright and bold, and several shots have a nice multi-plane aspect to them that adds a dash of dimensionality. Line detail is very crisp and even with the surfeit of busy patterns, no aliasing or other artifacts were noticed in preparation for this review.

The Rabbi's Cat Blu-ray, Audio Quality

 

The Rabbi's Cat features a lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 mix in the original French language (with optional English subtitles) that comes wonderfully alive in several outdoor scenes as well as with the film's really charming and evocative score. Dialogue is very cleanly presented and fidelity is excellent. There are some issues in the subtitles with "special" characters (like words with French accents) that display incorrectly.

The Rabbi's Cat Blu-ray, Special Features and Extras

 

• The Making of The Rabbi's Cat (480i; 24:49) has some fun behind the scenes footage of Sfar working with his animation staff and the live models who provided inspiration for various characters.


• Joann Sfar Draws From Memory (480i; 45:56) is a really sweet profile of Sfar that gets into his background and also his obsession to constantly draw no matter where he is or what he's doing.


• The Rabbi's Cat Trailer (1080p; 1:38)

The Rabbi's Cat Blu-ray, Overall Score and Recommendation

 

As superb as so much of contemporary American animation is these days, it's nice to visit "foreign lands" courtesy of some of these recently imported titles, for there's a completely different sensibility and storytelling rationale that is often quite surprising and enjoyable if not expected to be stuffed whole cloth into some preconceived notion of what a "proper" three act scenario should be like. The Rabbi's Cat is bright and breezy with just a hint of melancholy and a dash of unexpected violence that may actually shock some viewers, but it's also a sweet and noble film that explores issues of religious identity with a rather refreshing élan. Pacinf issues and an episodic storyline may throw some viewers for occasional loops, but for those with a taste for something different, this will easily fit the bill. This Blu-ray offers superior video, excellent audio and has some nice supplements and comes Highly recommended.

New Video Group has revealed that it is planning to bring to Blu-ray directors Antoine Delesvaux and Joann Sfar's award-winning animated film Le chat du rabbin a.k.a The Rabbi's Cat (2011). The preliminary release date set by the studio is April 9th.