A Cat in Paris (2011)

This petite movie was an Oscar nominee for Best Animated Feature Film last year--such a charming and different departure from the slick and highly polished products that come out of Hollywood.

The film is directed directed by the French animation team of Jean-Loup Felicioli and Alain Gagno, and it is wonderfully whimsical.  The images in “A Cat in Paris” are pointedly and delightfully off-kilter and out of proportion. Feet are much too small for bodies. Perspectives shift and slide. Apparently solid objects have a tendency to wobble. The laws of physics are brazenly flouted.

The cat and the little girl are our heroines--the cat is house cat by day, cat burglar by night.  She slinks off in the evening to join Nico, a human cat burglar.  The girl's mother is a police detective, and a major league bad guy has killed her father, and is after the rest of the family.  Never fear, the forces of good will prevail, but there is a nice amount of French farce in between to make the cartoon a romp of good fun.