Kedi (2016) Reviews

• Cool cats.

  jdesando2017-03-12

  "Cats (unlike dogs) know that we're not God. They know we're just the middlemen." Interviewee Let your inner cat take over and roam Istanbul with director Ceyda Torun as she produces a lovely documentary about the charmed lives of the 100,000 or more cats that benignly people the famous Turkish city. By focusing on the lives of seven cats, Torun effectively characterizes all those privileged felines. Although this doc, Kedi (Turkish for "cat"), doesn't negate the generally accepted aloofness of cats or their notorious independence, it brings them alive as individual felines with attributes to make us love each one differently. Memorable are Psikopat (as in "psychopath"), a tough wife to a similar tuxedo, who fears her wrath, and Sari, an orange and white who cleverly forages for her beautiful brood. As lovable as all the animal stars of this entertaining documentary are, the humans who take care of the cats (when they let them) are almost as affecting. The interviewees come forward with sayings and observations that are at times lovingly profound and at others just shy of New Age: "I heal my wounds by healing theirs," says one cat lover after cooking 20 pounds of chicken for a daily entourage of appreciative strays. This tone poem's veracity is slightly compromised by having minimal conflicts as the cats intrude multiple ways on Istanbul life. Kedi is a lyrical expression of love, but I've never heard of a city so pristine, virtually immaculate, while also having a robust street life that accommodates felines in such luxury. I guess I'll have to see for myself someday. If you see Kedi, you will seek out boxes of kitties on street corners forever condemning you to cute and cool little beings never more alluring than on the streets of Istanbul. "Cats are the runes of beauty, invincibility, wonder, pride, freedom, coldness, self-sufficiency, and dainty individuality - the qualities of sensitive, enlightened, mentally developed, pagan, cynical, poetic, philosophic, dispassionate, reserved, independent, Nietzschean, unbroken, civilised, master-class men." H. P. Lovecraft

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• "Without the cats, Istanbul would lose part of its soul"

  paul-allaer2017-03-04

  "Kedi" (2016 release from Turkey; 80 min.) is a documentary about the thousands of stray cats (street cats) all over Istanbul. As the movie opens, we get a fabulous aerial view of the city, and then get to know a number of cats, starting with a female cat who is out hunting food on the streets, not for herself but as it turns out for her small kittens who are anxiously waiting her return. And that's just the start of this... Couple of comments: if you don't care for cats, then by all means do yourself a favor and seek out another movie. If on the other hand you love cats, you are in for an absolutely delightful treat. Apparently as we learn in this film, Istanbul, itself a huge metropolis, is home to many street cats, and the city's population (at least for the most part) has taken upon itself to care for these cats, and to outright love them. The movie focuses on a handful of cats, all of them with their own personality (the "fish thief", the "carefree", the "flirt", etc.). A number of shots are filmed from the cat's perspective (i.e. close to ground level). Along the way, we get a fabulous look of what day-to-day life in Istanbul is like. At one point a woman comments "it is difficult for women to express their femininity in this country, but the cats do it so gracefully", a dig as to the social environment for women in Turkey, even in a cosmopolitan city like Istanbul. But in the end, it's all about the cats: they hunt, they play, they roam the streets, they fight, they climb, and along the way they steal your heart. I had heard a glowing review of "Kedi" on NPR a week or two ago and when "Kedi" opened this weekend at my local art-house theater here in Cincinnati, I couldn't wait to see it. The Friday evening where I saw this at was PACKED, much to my surprise, and the audience absolutely LOVED the movie, laughing out loud many times throughout the movie. After the movie was over, I couldn't wait to get home, where I knew my beloved cat Mimic would be waiting for me ;-) If you love cats, you don't want to miss this, be it in the theater, on VOD or eventually on DVD/Blu-ray. "Kedi" is HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!

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• Istanbul from a cat's-eye view.

  typicaltaylor2017-02-17

  This movie was wonderful. Whether you're a cat lover or not, it's hilarious, poignant, and amazingly well-shot. The cinematography of capturing so many cats at play, fighting, protecting their babies, etc. must have been absolutely grueling, so huge kudos to the filmmakers for presenting a work which so obviously shows care was taken to get these amazing visuals. Kedi is a love letter to the cats of Istanbul, and their guardian angels who keep them fed and sheltered. Go see it!

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• Not Just for cat lovers

  irfanhussains2017-07-21

  This movie made me fall in love with my cats again. The beautiful cinematography and the limited story line was a treat to watch. I have always admired Turkey and after watching this I want to be there as quick as possible. Cat lovers are special people and we can see so many sweet people in there. I smiled so much looking at them with tears in my eyes. Thank you for this.

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• Brilliant Film Not Really About Cats at All

  hilaryjrp2017-05-30

  I gave "Kedi" a 10 rating on IMDb. In the early 2000's, the most spiritual film arguably was "March of the Penguins," about eccentric mating rituals but much more about the holiness of life and the will to live among eccentric wild animals. The *exact* is true, but in much more human-friendly terms, about "Kedi." "Variety" calls this film "graceful," which its lovely (xylophone?) soundtrack emphasizes. "Kedi" is urban, fast-paced, and deceptively lighthearted--deceptively because "Kedi" is about the universal need humans have to care for animal life. The narratives the various street cats' food- and love-providers give offer insights into the needs of humans much more than the needs of the cats. One man in particular, who wanders each day feeding the cats with sacks of food, explains bluntly that he suffered a nervous breakdown fifteen years ago, and that the only thing that raised him out of his depression was taking care of the strays, and that, in this discipline, he found meaning and happiness. A constant refrain that all the food- and love-givers repeat is that without the ability to love animals, we do not have the ability love one another. "Kedi" raises some questions the producers leave unanswered. A few of the human "supporting cast" bring up the matter of neutering, but at least this viewer was mildly stunned by the lack of concern in general for the cat overpopulation. (I'd have donated instantly to an international or domestic U.S. Go Fund Me account!) The film also repeats how urbanization is destroying the seaside lands the cats depend on for survival--and no one addresses any animal rights group's efforts to step in and help. The irony is how the film's impact is all the stronger for its total silence on controversial topics, because in the end, "Kedi" is just about love. As "March of the Penguins" was about the will to live, "Kedi" is about love, pure and simple, from the ginger mother cat's odd adaptation to hunting-and-gathering for her kittens back in a stairwell, to the older folks for whom the cats are a reason for living and armor against loneliness, we see the innate and complex human and feline need for one another. Another, and maybe the most potent, message of the film is that keeping domestic animals as pets is in the end unworkable. Many of the people interviewed say that cats do not belong indoors, and that being kept indoors changes and even destroys a cat's nature. Whether a viewer holds deep opinions on this increasingly widely held but controversial subject is yet another of the themes "Kedi" stays as silent on as the cats who star in it. Finally, "Kedi" interviews a charming Muslim who tells how as a boy he and his brother planted Christian crosses on the graves of cats that died and that they gave proper burials to; and how their father was infuriated that they would convert to Christianity as a result of their little rituals. And then the young man says what will make everyone cry: he could not have survived to adulthood without his love of the street cats. That's about as primal a statement about our shared humanity as you'll see in this year of a world increasingly divided by religious and political strife. "Kedi" is about YOU. It's about your response to neediness, to vulnerable innocence, and to the universal truth that the only thing the world really needs is love. "Kedi" may have human competition for best film of 2017; for me, it will be the Best Film of the Decade.

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