50/30
Filmmaker Kazuhiro Soda observes their coexistence
Tale
A large colony of cats lives in a Shinto shrine. The residents take care of them; the rest are disturbed by the chaos.
Of course, dogs are superior to cats
The serious programmer, who presented the British premiere of this documentary at the 2024 London Film Festival, has more than once called the "non-human animals" – the awakening reaches the animal kingdom! But director Kazuhiro Sôda is a charming person who takes selfies with the audience – he distracted attention with his unpromising statement that he worked without any research…
We see them being fed by kind people, taken to “stable”, sharing food with their kittens, etc
However, even non-cat fans will probably be fascinated by the Shinto shrine in a small Japanese coastal town. But it’s not all cats: people also appear, in sequences like an endless committee meeting and the cleanup after a tornado.
As a result, can we say that what we see is accurate?
The problem with making this kind of “surveillance film” is the small probability that people with a camera will behave normally – so how much does the documentary filmmaker make of the simple fact of their presence? But the film is at least worth watching in presenting a slice of Japanese life.
