Reviews & Ratings for
Le chat More at IMDbPro »

17 out of 19 people found the following review useful:
Stellar acting!, 26 December 2002

Author: Bryce David

To make a review short, the acting by Jean Gabin and Simone Signoret is nothing short of fantastic. The film is a downer but it's worth watching. There's something in French cinema that's unique. It often creates towering, almost mythical characters through mundane situations. The two actors make anyone from Hollywood look amateurish.

12 out of 12 people found the following review useful:
Rust never sleeps., 12 June 2005

Author: dbdumonteil

A critic whose name I forgot wrote:"imagine that in "le jour se lève" (1939),Jean Gabin had not died;he would have married Jacqueline Laurent and what would have become of them?Probably what Granier-Deferre shows in his movie (adapted from Georges Simenon)".It's a harsh cruel ruthless effort:daily life ,routine,humdrum,a love worn away by time have destroyed everything."Wounds have burst open,and corridors rust/Once proud and truthful,now humble and bent/Fires which burnt brightly,now energies spent"(Keith Reid) These two former lovers have become the worst enemies;Gabin has transferred his affection to a pet,and Signoret cannot stand it.Around them,wrecking balls are destroying all the old houses,it's a transparent metaphor ;their world is crumbling and they know it.The second part,when Gabin stops talking to his wife and writes her notes to communicate is downright depressing.And however,the ending will show that even after floating on an ocean of mud,love ,or something which looks like love, survives.

12 out of 12 people found the following review useful:
beware!, 30 March 2001

Author: Ralf Bader (ralf.bader1@epost.de) from Frankfurt

doubtless one of the best movies by granier-deferre and the acting is superb. so is the interplay of montage, photography and music. all throughout the running time everything is handled with great care and sophistication. a must-see if you like french drama. but take care: you're going to watch an extremely dark and pessimistic film. there's no light, there's no hope. nowhere.

10 out of 10 people found the following review useful:
Purr-fect? Trust Me, This Is The Cat's, 4 November 2005

Author: writers_reign

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

First and foremost this is a Masterclass in the Art of Screen Acting by two of the most distinguished practitioners of that Art. Nine out of ten people who are interested in the comments of a film like this one will be fully conversant with the outstanding contribution made to Cinema by Jean Gabin and Simone Signoret but my time posting comments on this board has been punctuated at irregular intervals by PMs from teenagers anxious to learn more about the kind of cinema where popcorn both in a carton and between the ears is not a condition of admission to the auditorium and with that albeit tiny readership in mind I'll perhaps inform them and remind the more mature that Jean Gabin spent 15 years in the French Music Hall before turning to film in 1928 since when he graced such Classics as La Belle Equipe, Pepe Le Moko, Quai des Brumes, Le Jour se leve, La Grande Illusion, Remorques, Touchez-pas au grisbi, La Traversee de Paris, Melodie sous-sol to merely scratch the surface whilst Simone Signoret, although beginning somewhat later (1942) notched up an equally impressive CV; the early success Dedee d'Anvers was directed by her first husband Yves Allegret and she went on to feature in such classic titles as La Ronde, Casque d'Or, Les Diaboliques, Armee des Ombres and the English film Room At The Top, a performance which netted her the very first Best Actress Oscar awarded to a non-American actress. These then were the dual backgrounds and experience that these great actors brought to Le Chat and once again I find myself reporting on a film in the wake of other raves and once again I am both pleased and honored to add my voice to those others. As a Case History of a relationship that has soured to the point of bitterness and virtually no communication this movie hits every target at which it aims. There are long stretches at the beginning where we have only non-verbal acting of the highest order to tell us - and I use that word deliberately rather than 'show' - what is going on, what has GONE on and what WILL be the inevitable conclusion. Monitoring the emptiness, the hollowness, the bitterness of this relationship it's almost impossible - despite subtle reminders - to imagine that these people had once loved each other so much that they had chosen to spend their lives together. Now, inexplicably and unobtrusively that love has disintegrated til Julien (Gabin) loves only his cat, Greffier whilst Signoret still yearns wistfully for the love that has been lost. Most of the other comments here speak of depression, sadness and other negatives yet I did not find it so. True, there is little or nothing uplifting about such a story - especially so since the neighboring buildings are being pulled down around them and in yet another metaphor their house is shown, in earlier times, to form a natural cul-de-sac at right-angles to the others - but Great Acting will always transcend melodramatic emotion and screen Acting doesn't come Greater than this. Brilliant.

9 out of 9 people found the following review useful:
Tagline, 17 April 2005

Author: clarissatheclown from Los Angeles, CA

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

Depressing but mesmerizing, this movie is like a horrible traffic accident - you know it's going to be gruesome, but you can't look away because you MUST know what happened to these people. The acting - in fact the entire film - is typically French, grittily realistic, yet artistically satisfying. No pie-in-the-sky happy ending. People are cruel sons of guns who can't even love without corruption. Deal with it. Simone Signoret's wild eyes as she cuts up her husband's prized newspapers ("Look what you have done, Kitty!") will stick with you for years afterward. I know. I saw it in the theater when it came out. There was a tag line for this film, one of the best I've heard, since it summarizes the plot exactly: "A love-hate relationship so strong it destroyed everything - the man, the woman - even the cat."

13 out of 17 people found the following review useful:
profound movie about human relations, 28 September 1999

Author: radlov from Luxembourg

Elderly couple. Husband has nothing to communicate to his wife any more. Wife still longs for some affection. Only cat gets affection. Wife shoots cat. Husband even more alienated.

My wife and I were watching this movie on TV. Our cats were sitting on our laps, happily purring. "A very profound movie about man-cat relationship", I remarked. "Actually it is more about the relationship between humans, or the lack of it", my wife replied. Of course, she was right.

4 out of 5 people found the following review useful:
Excellent acting, by two of the best, 12 September 1999
Author: D Joly from Ashland, OR, USA

This started as a Georges Simenon story, and is typically brutal about human relationships. I like it so because of the performances of Gabin & Signoret - they were as good as you can get, and here are at the top of their powers. Either of them would have blown anybody else I can think of off the screen. Excellent, if very French.

2 out of 8 people found the following review useful:
Miaaaaaoouuuu ! Not everyone's saucer of milk !, 23 April 2007

Author: Nicholas Rhodes from Ile-de-France / Paris Region, France

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

This is hardly what you would call a film of action, in fact all the director could muster was a couple of shots from a pistol resulting in one dead moggie ! No, it's a film destined to a limited audience, and, even worse, is pessimistic and gloomy. A bit of a shame because Pierre Granier-Deferre has produced some more interesting stuff than this. However, it is watchable if you like the main actors, Jean Gabin and Simone Signoret, which I do. Their performance ( and the cat's ) makes the film just about watchable. Jean Gabin and Simone Signoret's couple has been flagging for a while, he does not love her any more and gives all his affection to this famous cat, whilst SS is getting more and more irate....alors, ce qui devait arriver, arriva .... she shoots the cat ! The gloominess of the film is compounded by the fact that they live in a neighbourhood which is gradually being demolished day by day to make place for high rise blocks, and their old house stands out like a sore thumb amongst the ruins. There is little human dialogue in the film ( but Gabin does seek some solace from a neighbour lady friend ), there is some slow-motion cat dancing on scaffolding and various futile attempts by Signoret to start conversation. In summary, it is well acted, these two are "monstres sacrés" from French cinema so I think the film is worth watching for their performance. If I am not mistaken it was made in the western Paris suburbs, either near Colombes or the Courbevoie/Puteaux area which has been transformed into La Défense business complex. For this reason alone the film is an interesting record of a long demolished area of the Paris suburbs. Also on the positive side, picture and sound quality are excellent.

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