By Ian Berke
March 6, 2017
Kedi is a Turkish documentary (kedi is Turkish for cats) about the stray cats of Istanbul, and a love letter to that exotic city. You don’t have to be a cat lover to love this film with its very affectionate look at these cats and the people of Istanbul, who care for them. The cinematography is wonderful, with the camera often gliding at cat level, showing their lives from birth to death. The cat lovers interviewed are as interesting as the cats.
“If you can’t love animals, you cannot love people.”
The cats are as integrated into the culture and life of the city as are its human inhabitants. The soundtrack of Turkish traditional and rock music is great. Kedi is tremendously enjoyable film with insight and love. Running time: 80 minutes, showing at the Embarcadero, the Rafael, the Shattuck and Camera 3.
Get Out is a sophisticated horror film with humorous touches, but definitely scary. It’s scary not because of vampires or zombies, but because of the ostensibly normal characters who seem much like us.
The story begins just like Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, where a black guy first meets his girlfriend’s wealthy parents at their country mansion. The parents are quite progressive and welcome him and try to say all the right things, some of which sounds exaggerated, such as raving about Tiger Woods. They do have black servants whom they continually praise as “family” but who are a bit strange. Then the story begins to take a very different direction than expected.
A first film by Jordan Peel that will make it hard to sleep after you’ve seen it. Running time: 104 minutes, showing widely in the Bay Area, including the Marina.
Meow and ciao for now, Ian.
The Hunger Site
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