A female director in Turkey made a cat movie. The director, Jada Torun, grew up in Istanbul and, according to her, had 21 cats during her upbringing.
This reminds me of Doris Lessing, the winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, who loves cats very much, and has many cats with her growing up. She also wrote an interesting work, Special Cats.
What the two have in common is that, unlike the traditional "interesting stories between people and cats" that start from people, they both start from the cats themselves to write about the cats' status in different living environments, as well as the relationship between cats and cats. .
This cat film is a documentary about the living conditions of cats in the city. The title of the film is "Kedi" , which literally means "cat". When it was released in China, it was translated into "City of Love for Cats", which is very straightforward. From the perspective of human beings, it tells how people in the city of Istanbul dote on these cats.
In fact, what is even more touching is how these cats survive in human cities, and their intelligence is often admirable.
In the film "Kedi", every cat has its own name. Like all movies, this documentary has a cast and crew, and the names of all those cats are on the list.
Ben Gu, Deniz, Duman, Wuyou, Little Lion...they play the role of "self".
Like everyone else in Istanbul, the director really loves cats and pets cats.
An uncle in the film said: "People who don't know how to care for animals also don't know how to love people."
There is also an uncle who has been taking care of the cats on the dock for more than ten years. He said: "People approach God in one way or another. For me, the connection between me and God may be the cat."—— When he was down and down more than ten years ago, he was reborn from a cocoon because of the "guide" of a cat. It sounds like a mysterious story, but the uncle believes that it may also be because he is in awe of cats.
The people of the whole city are willing to become shit shoveling officers, cats in Istanbul, have a good life.
As for why Istanbul has become a city of cats, the film borrowed a painter to tell us in front of the screen why Istanbul has such a large number and variety of cats.
The port at the foot of Mount Cihangir was already a busy trading hub during the Ottoman Empire. Sailors from all over the world usually keep a cat on board to prevent rodent infestation. When the boat docked, the cats also got off the boat. They walked along the mountain road, but unknowingly missed the time when the boat returned.
So he was left in the city forever.
So you can see many beautiful long-haired cats, which should be descended from Norwegian forest cats. There are also many other breeds of cats.
Later, the Ottoman Empire built a sewer system, and rats would crawl into the houses of residents along the sewers. So for a while, cats have become a hot commodity, and every household will have a cat to avoid rat rampages.
In addition to the powerful functions of "killing rodents", cats also have a soothing effect.
There is a woman in the film who is told by her doctor that she can get some solace by getting some cats and taking care of them.
She did as she did. She kept more than a dozen cats at home and burned more than ten kilograms of chicken for them to eat every day. In addition, she also feeds the cats outside at designated times every day.
She feels that although she has a cat, her worries have not eased. But she takes care of these cats day in and day out, so why not redeem herself and devote herself to the tedious but lively life of fireworks.
Now in Istanbul, in addition to the cats kept in human homes, there are many cats roaming the streets.
These cats are different from stray cats. They do not worry about eating and drinking, and they are petted by passers-by and shopkeepers who come and go.
You can see these cats take care of themselves beautifully, and some are even out of shape and accumulate a little fat.
These cats are called "street cats".
The so-called "street cats" have established territories, fixed cat groups, and fixed human companions.
You can understand that the domestic cat is placed on the street and raised by the surrounding households/businesses and tourists passing by. These cats are more free than domestic cats, but they are also at higher risk most of the time because of their larger living areas.
For example, it has appeared in the film that a kitten less than 2 months old was attacked by a big cat and fell to its death from a height; there are not a few cats who died in a car accident.
If there are relevant statistics, the average life expectancy of street cats must be lower than that of domestic cats.
But compared with the bored house cat locked at home, it is a street cat, which has made the soul of a city.
The cats of Istanbul travel through the living space of human beings. In scenic spots, they calmly accept the caress of tourists; in commercial streets, they shuttle among various shops and are loved by shopkeepers; at the wharf, they can be fed by fishermen, but sometimes they need to compete with water birds for food.
Their actions are not just to survive. These cats paced the streets leisurely and had normal social interactions with other cat companions. Cats mate, compete with each other, snatch territory - they live leisurely in the city and are "part of the soul" of Istanbul.
Some people have clearly expressed their concern: the process of urbanization is accelerating, where will cats go in the future of Istanbul?
The BBC's documentary "Earth Pulse" also raised this issue.
According to the living environment, in addition to the islands, mountains, rainforests and other environments, there are also "cities".
Some animals are in the city and have become a part of city life. For example, long-tailed langurs in India, they gather in cities, and people are familiar with them, because sometimes they steal some fruits and have to be guarded.
The relationship between cats and people and cities is different from that of other animals.
Have they been domesticated like livestock? For this issue, most people's view is that the people currently wandering the streets of the city are actually domesticated cats.
But the magic of the cat is that, although it is functional, such as catching mice, you can't command the cat to hunt mice the same way you command other animals to work. Whether a cat wants to hunt mice depends on its nature, and maybe...depending on its mood.
For people in our city, cats may be more of a spiritual encounter. The cat and the city coexist, giving the city a unique temperament; the cat and the human live together, and they will never bow down and be neither humble nor arrogant.
Perhaps as an uncle in the film said, cats are divine animals. You can approach God by approaching cats. It is the bridge connecting you.
View more about Kedi reviews
