The Cat

Julien used to be a typesetter. Clémence used to work in a circus. They have been married for years and no longer speak. They live in the same house; they eat, they sit in the same room, and they do not say a word. When something must be said they write it on paper. The quarter is being demolished; the buildings around them are coming down one by one and their house is left in a field of rubble. Julien keeps a cat. He talks to it, strokes it, spends his evenings with it. Clémence watches. One day the cat disappears. Pierre Granier-Deferre directs. Jean Gabin plays Julien and Simone Signoret plays Clémence; Annie Cordy is in the cast. It is a French and Italian co-production, made in 1971. The source is Georges Simenon's novel. Simone Signoret won the best actress award at the Berlin Film Festival for the part. The matter it treats is silence; it is not a stance but a punishment that has become a habit. The narrative uses few flashbacks and does not explain the pair's past as a whole. The quarter under demolition works directly inside the narrative; the house and the marriage come down together. The cat is at the centre but the film does not use it as something endearing. The narrative rests on the two faces; there is little dialogue and the scenes are long. Its limit is the watching; the narrative is sombre, the pace very slow, and the ending bitter. Who it is for: viewers who like French classics and adaptations of Simenon. Who it is not for: it is slow, sombre, and the ending heavy.