As we limp our way through another Lent, we’re continuing the annual tradition of gathering the kids for a movie on Friday nights. (This goes along with our other Lent and Advent tradition of going screen-free from 7:00-9:00.) The movie doesn’t have to be overtly religious, but it should have some spiritual theme (not necessarily Christian). We aim for movies we have reason to believe are well-crafted (a “good message” is not enough!), but if we miss that mark, we can at least talk about why it was bad, and whether there were any good parts.
For reference, the kids at home are now ages 21, 19, 17, 15, 13, and 10. In a pretty naked appeal to the masses, I started this year’s Mandatory Film Party with a 2011 animated French film called The Rabbi’s Cat, directed by Joann Sfar and Antoine Delesvaux, based on Sfar’s comics series. It is set in 1920’s Algeria, and is mostly in French, with nicely clear English subtitles.
Here’s a trailer:
Okay, so this is not a kid’s movie; but it’s also not quite as goofy as the trailer makes it look. It has some pretty graphic murder (although the victims had it coming), a little bit of obvious but not graphic nudity and sex (between married people who are dizzily in love), and I was a little taken aback at how horny the animators clearly were for the rabbi’s daughter, Zlabya. There is also a short, disturbingly slapstick interlude where one character explains through illustration how he escaped violent pogroms in Russia and stowed away to Algeria inside a crate of sacred books.
I just mention all this for full disclosure, but the general tone of the movie is . . . well, the main character is a cat, who is very cat-like in his worldview. He leads a comfortable life as the coddled pet of the rabbi’s daughter, and gains the gift of speech after eating their parrot. He becomes obsessed with being bar mitzvah’d, initially for ignoble reasons, and the rabbi grudgingly agrees to teach him what he needs to know.
Through a series of friendships and encounters, the rabbi and cat end up setting out through the desert, with the starry-eyed Russian painter, an evil Russian exile, a learned Moslem sheikh, and a warmly self-assured black African waitress, under the combined flag with the Mogen David nestled into the Imperial two-headed Russian eagle, because the painter has a dream that, somewhere in Africa, there is a glorious city of black Jews where everyone lives in peace and harmony.
This turns out not to be accurate! But you can’t help but feel that they have sorta kinda meanwhile made a brotherly city in their weird little caravan, where everyone ardently believes what they believe, but makes room for other people’s lives? That makes it sound preachy, which the movie definitely is not. If anything, it is a little too comfortable sort of shrugging its cinematic shoulders and casually wondering who can say what’s possible.
It’s odd, because it very explicitly brings up hugely contentious questions, like “Which is better, Islam or Judaism?” and “Who is a Jew?” and it just . . . shrugs. The people who can shrug survive, and those who can’t, don’t. But it does it in a way that feels real for the characters. It’s super comic book-y, but also hits on something very familiar and relevant: The question of how to sort through what is and is not indispensable about their identities, and their relationships with God and with each other.
The movie also has something on its mind about speech and language, but it’s not really developed, unless I’m missing something. The cat learns to speak, then loses that power after he obstinately invokes the name of God, who he doesn’t really believe in, to help the rabbi pass his French language test. Then the cat can mysteriously speak Russian, so he converses with the painter; and eventually he gets his speech back, and I forget whether this is before or after he has some kind of epiphany about God. It’s hard to say whether God is real in the movie or not, but he’s definitely real to some of the characters.
I honestly can’t say whether my vagueness on various plot points is my fault for not paying close attention, or just because the film is so hard to pin down. But if it sounds like I didn’t like it, I’m telling it wrong. I cannot overstate how charming and entertaining and gorgeous and exciting the whole thing was, from start to finish. We absolutely just went with the ambiguities, because it was so fully a pleasure to see and hear, from the opening credits to the end. The music, the animation, the dialogue, the COLORS, and the way so many sequences were framed, were all a nonstop feast. And the colors!
It was also very funny, with the whole family laughing out loud several times. There is also a completely unexpected cameo which I don’t want to spoil, but it was one of the funniest things I’ve seen on screen for some time.
Was this a good Lent Film Party film? Ehh, maybe not so much, but it was definitely a movie worth watching. Best for kids high school age and up. (My kids are irreversibly corrupt already, so I didn’t feel terrible that the younger kids watched it.)
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Next: We are thinking of watching A Hidden Life, but last year we watched The Tree of Life and every single one of us conceived a seething and enduring hatred of Terrence Malick. I have never been so disappointed in a film in my life. It had so much promise, and so much skill went into it, and it got such fervently great reviews, and it turned itself into a ludicrously trite and ambiguous vehicle for stock images that would have been at home in a commercial for Charles Schwab. Boy, did we hate that long, long movie. We bonded over how much we hated it.
And A Hidden Life is also very long. What should we do? Is this one more narratively cohesive? It is Tree Of Life-y, or is it different? If Tree of Life is 10/10 Malicks, how many would you rate Hidden Life?
I also bought a DVD of the miniseries Pope John Paul II, with Karol W(I ain’t lookin that up) played by Cary Elwes, about whom the kids broke my heart by saying, “Oh, he was in Saw!” rather than, “Oh, he was in Princess Bride!” (I told you they were corrupt.) So, tell me what you know about this miniseries, because it would probably be a two-nighter because of its length. It’s okay if it’s not a cinematic masterpiece; it just can’t be a turkey.
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Oh, we watched The Rabbi’s Cat on Kanopy. Looks like you can also rent it on Apple TV+.
Here’s a list of the other movies we’ve watched for Lent in past years, with links to ReelGood so you can see where to stream them, and my review (if any):
Noah (2014)
where to stream
My review
The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928)
where to stream
My review
Lilies of the Field (1963)
where to stream
(My longer review here)
The Secret of Kells (2009)
where to stream
(My longer review here)
Saint Philip Neri: I Prefer Heaven
available via Formed
(My longer review here)
The Miracle Maker (1999)
where to stream
(My longer review here)
The Jeweller’s Shop (1989)
available via Formed
(My longer review here)
The Reluctant Saint: The Story of Joseph of Cupertino (1963)
available via Formed
(My longer review here)
Fiddler on the Roof (1971)
where to stream
(My longer review here)
The Scarlet and the Black (1983)
where to stream
(My longer review here)
Boys Town (1938)
where to stream
(My longer review here)
Fatima (2020)
where to stream
(My longer review here)
The Song of Bernadette (1943)
where to stream
(My longer review here)
Ushpizin (2005)
where to stream
(My longer review here)
Calvary (2014)
where to stream
I Confess (1953)
where to stream
(My longer review here)
The Robe (1953)
where to stream
(My longer review here)
The Trouble With Angels (1966)
where to stream
(My longer review here)
Babette’s Feast (1987)
where to stream
(My longer review here)
The Passion of the Christ (2004)
where to stream
(My full review here)
There Be Dragons (2011)
where to stream
(my longer review here)
The Prince of Egypt (1998)
where to stream