Gokogu no Neko 2024 Torrent H264.MULTI

33/44

Director Kazuhiro Soda observes their coexistence

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A large colony of cats inhabits a Shinto shrine. The residents care for them; others are disturbed by the mess.

However, even those who are not big cat fans will probably be enchanted by the cats that inhabit a Shinto shrine in a small Japanese coastal town

The earnest programmer who introduced the UK premiere of this documentary at the 2024 London Film Festival used, more than once, the phrase “non-human animals” – wokeism comes to the animal kingdom! But director Kazuhiro Sôda was an engaging guy, taking selfies with the audience – which detracted from his unpromising claim that he worked without doing any research… It is, of course, indisputable that dogs are superior to cats.

We see them being fed by well-wishers, captured for “staring”, sharing food with their kittens, etc

But it’s not just cats: there are humans, too, in sequences like an interminable committee meeting and the cleanup after a typhoon. The problem with making an “observational film” of this sort is that people with a camera trained on them are unlikely to actually behave as they normally do: so how much does the documentary maker change just because they’re there?

As a result, can we really say that what we’re seeing is accurate?

But in its presentation of a slice of Japanese life, the film is at least worth watching once.