by Mark Murton

Directed by: Marc Levie

Cat Out Of The Bag Alert! This review contains MAJOR spoilers for this short film.

Synopsis: A young woman (Sonia Paul) lives alone with her blue shorthair cat but when she brings home a goldfish as a new pet the cat becomes jealous. One in a series of dialogue-less Belgian short films made under the ‘Serie Galante’ banner, all set in the “naughty” twenties and combining humour with mild erotica.

Featured Feline: The opening shot shows a grey cat snoozing on top of a wall clock. The clock ticks and the contented cat purrs.

Soon the cat wakes and looks towards his mistress’s empty chair and reminisces about lying in her lap as a kitten playing with the ball of wool with which she is knitting.

The cat then looks to the dining table and remembers sitting on the table at meal time feeding from his bowl before being gathered up by his mistress for a cuddle.

Next the cat looks towards the empty bed in the corner and reminisces about being snuggled up next to his mistress as she gently strokes his face.

Hearing the mistress’ footsteps approaching, the cat jumps down from his perch and goes to the door. The woman enters and is greeted by the cat.

However, she isn’t alone as she is carrying a goldfish in a bowl which causes the cat to run off and hide under a nearby chest of drawers.

The cat watches as she places the bowl in the middle of the dining table and places the cat’s food bowl on the floor! As the woman feeds the fish the cat looks on from the top of a chest of drawers next to a photograph of himself and his mistress.

When the woman goes into the bathroom to run herself a bath the cat takes the opportunity to leap onto the table for a closer look at his new nemesis. Returning to the room briefly, the woman spots the cat and picks him up to administer admonishment before placing him on the floor.

The woman returns to the bathroom and the cat jumps up onto a bookcase and (aided by unseen human hands) starts pushing the books onto the floor.

He then nudges the framed photo onto the floor where the glass smashes.

At this point the cat jumps to the floor and takes refuge under an armchair before peeping out from between the frills around the base as the woman sweeps up the broken glass and empties it, along with the photo of her and the cat, into the bin.

The woman returns to the bathroom once more and starts to disrobe as the cat returns to the table to continue staring at the fish.

The cat jumps to floor and claws at the tablecloth until it slides off the table onto the floor along with the fish bowl. The bowl smashes to pieces leaving the fish floundering.

Hearing the commotion, the woman races out of the bathroom and gathers up the fish before racing back into the bathroom with the cat in hot pursuit. Coming into the bathroom the cat leaps up onto a nearby cabinet.

From here he observes as the woman plays with the fish in the bath (the hot bath water seemingly having no ill effect on the hardy creature!). Soon, and under the watchful gaze of the cat, the woman gets out of the bath leaving the fish to happily continue swimming around.

As the woman busies herself cleaning up the shards of glass from the broken bowl her attention is drawn to the sound of the plug being pulled from the bath and the water emptying down the drain. Back in the bathroom the last of the water spirals down the plughole and the cat is seen sitting at the tap end of the bath with the plug chain clamped in his mouth.

Final Mewsings: Cats think of fish only as food, not pets.

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