Rudolf the Black Cat

An animated film set in Japan. Rudolf is a black cat. He lives in a house in Gifu and his owner is a little girl. One day he jumps onto a lorry. The lorry does not stop. When he wakes he is in Tokyo. He finds a cat in the street. His name is unsettled; because everyone calls him something different he considers himself the owner of all the names. This cat runs the neighbourhood. He knows fighting, he knows the routes, and he knows one more thing: how to read. He starts teaching Rudolf. From there the film is a story about education. Signs, a map, an address, and the possibility of getting home. Street life is not easy. Food, territory, dogs and stronger cats. There is a rival as well. Another cat wants the neighbourhood and the matter is personal. What the narrative is interested in is not being lost but learning: its idea is that the way home runs through reading, and that a cat who has learned to read now thinks about returning differently. Rudolf can go back in the end. But what he sees is not what he expected and the narrative does not turn it into a tear-jerk. The animation is computer generated. The cats move realistically and the backgrounds are close to photographs. The source is Hiro Saito's children's novel, part of a series long read in Japan. The tone is for children but the subjects are not. Death, abandonment and irreversible decisions are inside the narrative. Ryohei Suzuki, Mao Inoue and Norito Yashima are in the voice cast. Kunihiko Yuyama and Motonori Sakakibara directed. Who it is for: anyone who likes animal stories and quiet Japanese animation. Who it is not for: anyone expecting visual novelty; the animation is standard and the story takes a familiar road.