The Cassandra Cat

One of the most impressive and unique color gradings I’ve seen for movies of this era.

I’m always in awe with how good and almost magical a restoration can feel, especially when done from original negatives and what I imagine, a lot of time of fixing and cleaning up thousands of instances of dirt, grain, film tears, yet still keeping that balance of staying true to how the movie was supposed to feel and look when initially sculpted.

Saw this listed on Criterion Channel as a “Cat Movie,” and I don’t really watch a lot of Czech movies in the wild—seemed like a perfect match after a long Thursday. And you know what. It was so good! I liked the social commentary at heart, with revealing the people’s true identities, painting their whole bodies as either liars (violet), cheaters (yellow), thieves (gray), and in loveee (red). The cat needs to look at someone for them to get colored.

It felt somewhat similar to the play, “The Star Without a Name” from 1944 by Mihail Sebastian and later its Soviet adaptation, “The Nameless Star,” directed by Mikhail Kozakov, starring Igor Kostolevsky as Marin Miroiu and Anastasiya Vertinskaya as Mona (totally go see it if you haven’t). The provincial town lifestyle, of everyone constantly in each others’ businesses. Speaking of Mona, one of the reasons I noticed the movie is just by how drop-dead stunningly coma-inducing ethereally soft gorgeous Emília Vášáryová is as Diana.

Last but not least, I should make a full circle and praise the colors and how really, revolutionary it is at that time to go and paint entire sequences in solid colors, as if we were watching a theater play. Overall, I enjoyed it very much, probably given to the general comedic and at the same time, observational nature of the film!