12:30, Sunday November 22, 2009
Screened as part of Retrospective II
A wise house cat tells a story about how humanity came to be. Long ago, helped by the Singing Magic, Man came to dominion over nature, domesticating wild animals who were once foes. And with each domestication, his own nature and the world around him were changed.
The Cat Who Walked by Herself is one of the most daring and accomplished examples of experimentation in feature animation. In production from 1981 to 1988, it is an adaptation of the story published by British writer Rudyard Kipling in 1902. In contrast to American Kipling adaptations such as Disney’s The Jungle Book, Garanina’s film stays true to the dark and primal tone of his writing. The film seamlessly blends together many different animation styles. It uses music composed by the avant-garde Russian-Tatar composer Sofia Gubaidulina and features singing by jazz vocalist Valentina Ponomaryova.
