The Rabbi's Cat (2011)

Now here's a rarity in my adulthood: My mom made the suggestion based on an associate's semi-informed recommendation for her. It was streaming, so I and my parents went for it, knowing little more than that it was "surreal." I think the term "magic realism" applies better.

This subtitled French animation takes place in the late '20s, beginning in the Casbah of Algiers. It's unrated, but I can tell you it wasn't made for kids, as first hinted by the visual evidence that the nameless titular Abyssinian isn't neutered (and he makes use of that detail later). Things seem to move quickly, at least in terms of dialog and narration. The narrator being the cat, in an oddly deep voice like Jiji from Kiki's Delivery Service or Salem from "Sabrina the Teenage Witch." Still pretty cute, of course.

Things start to get strange when the cat suddenly says something that the human characters can understand. His ability comes and goes and can become selective in terms of which humans understand, tho fellow non-humans never have trouble understanding him. Nobody reacts quite as I'd expect in RL, and some don't even blink.

We find that the cat is good at logic and thinking on his feet for replies, but with his lack of tact, he seems too clever for his own good. He doesn't think much of Judaism but wouldn't mind a bar mitzvah if it makes the difference in whether he may continue to hang around Rabbi Sfar's daughter as before. Sfar finds no easy answers for what to do, but he has other matters to worry him more.

In fact, in the second half, the cat gets demoted to a supporting role, largely as a partial translator for a Russian Jew who escaped communist persecution. He joins the rabbi on a desert trek to a fabled city of Black Jews (whose eventual depiction would not fly well in the U.S., even if a more major Black character is basically decent). Matters of Islam and atheism come up, sometimes yielding a level of violence for which we were not prepared. The story ends at a strangely chosen point; if there's a moral, it's a rotten one.

For a movie that doesn't even have "Comedy" listed among its genres on IMDb, it is extraordinarily funny when not dead serious. The art can be interesting, if a tad screwy at times. It even has a cameo of a famous cartoon character who wouldn't look out of place in the setting. On that basis, we considered it a worthy viewing but weren't sure why it was recommended.