Cat Soup

I was intrigued by the anime Cat Soup. The little cats looked like cousins of Hello Kitty that I thought the movie would only be about cute, stupid kittens out on their nightly meowing rampage. Turns out I was dead wrong.

Cat Soup (image source: dvdnear.com/images)

Cat Soup is an abstract short film that serves both as a mind twister and a visual feast, in a weird cartoon kind of way. It is a simple story about a cat who embarks on a quest to recover his sister's soul which ripped apart when he was fighting Death in an attempt to save her. With no need for words, the film takes you along our feline hero's bloody journey.

The unifying theme in the movie -- if there was any theme at all -- is life and death. To be specific, the shortness of life, the abruptness of death and the struggle to survive in between. Filled with maniacally inventive concepts and allusions to popular religious and cultural ideas like Noah's Ark and Hansel and Gretel, the movie is unforgiving and beautiful and cruel all at once. True to its description, Cat Soup is indeed more of a work of art than an anime. And I sure enjoyed watching it.

You might want to see it yourself.