MOVIES
Encircle Films Presents
BY RICK LEVIN
3/31-4/6
492 E. 13th Ave
541-357-0375
MOVIES
THAT
bijou-cinemas.com
MATTER
Serving the Eugene Community for Over 35 Years!
THE RED TURTLE (PG)
Friday - Monday 1:30, 6:00
Tuesday 2:30
Wednesday 1:30, 6:00
Thursday 2:00, 4:00
What is the future of the Willamette River?
Thursday, April 6 6pm
Bijou Arts Cinema, 492 E. 13th Avenue
PATERSON (R)
Friday - Monday 3:30, 8:00
Tuesday 4:30
Wednesday 3:30, 8:00
Thursday 8:30
THE SENSE OF AN ENDING (PG-13)
Q & A Discussion following film
2:30, 5:00, 7:30
SPONSORED BY
1984 (R)
Tuesday 7:00 pm
Speaker: Steven Brence, Senior Instructor of Philosophy, UO
$7 General Admission. Free for Bijou Film Club Members.
Encircle Film Series presents
UPRIVER, BEHIND THE EMERALD CURTAIN
and TIMBERS COVER UP
THE CAT’S MEOW
Three important fi lms about the rivers, the coast and the forests of
our beloved Oregon. Sponsored by EWEB.
Thursday 6:00 pm | Discussion after the fi lm
New documentary Kedi takes a look at Istanbul’s beloved
— and threatened — population of street cats
MARCH 31-APRIL 6
LAND OF MINE
(UNDER SANDET)
beads
ONE WEEK ONLY!
ld
2:25 7:00 9:05
WILSON 2:40 7:00 9:05
THE LAST WORD 12:05 4:40
KEDI 12:35 2:45 5:00 7:15
I AM NOT YOUR NEGRO
12:15 2:30 4:45
7:00 9:00
MOONLIGHT
12:15 4:45 9:00
or
fro
I
live with two cats, and I haven’t looked at either of them in quite the same way since
seeing Kedi, a lovely new documentary about the entrenched population of street cats
roaming the ancient city of Istanbul.
Don’t get me wrong. I’ve always felt a profound spiritual connection to cats, but now
a certain suspicion of mine — a tingly sense that they have something otherworldly and
important to teach me about life, death and love — has become a conviction. My eyes have
been opened, and I’m experiencing our relationship with an even greater sense of sanctity
and, strange to say, responsibility.
That is the power of this film. Directed by Ceyda Torun, Kedi is the profile of seven
stray felines — each one a distinct character and total charmer — and the various
Turkish urbanites affected by their daily comings and goings. The documentary is simply
constructed and lovingly construed; the cinematography, which captures the grit and
grandeur of Istanbul, often through a cat’s-eye view, is beautiful, and the interviews are
pieced together in such a way that the simple narrative begins to plumb unexpected, almost
religious depths of feeling.
The late novelist William Burroughs once said that “my relationship with cats has
saved me from a deadly, pervasive ignorance,” and such a claim seems borne out in Kedi.
In interview after interview, shopkeepers and artists and fishermen from around Istanbul
wax philosophic on what these cats have taught them about themselves and about life in
general, and the lessons are nothing short of existential.
“It is said cats are aware of God’s existence,” says one man. “While dogs think people
are God, cats don’t. They just know better.” Several people suggest that cats see people
as mere “middlemen” in the heavenly swirl of existence, doers of God’s will. Another
woman goes so far as to compare felines to aliens whose language we must learn in order
to understand the true nature of our place on the planet.
Undoubtedly this sounds like utter pish-posh to some of you, while others, like me,
find nothing outrageous in the claim that cats are divine emissaries of deeper truths too
often ignored by the myopic human race. The beautiful thing about the film is that it takes
no great pains to establish such profundity; what’s revealed, in a straightforward and
conversational manner, is simply the way everyday people are affected by the animals
around them. In that sense, the evidence of cats’ spiritual impact is irrefutable, because it
passes the litmus test of personal relevance.
Underlying all of this, then, is a more melancholy note. As Istanbul, like the world
at large, succumbs to the onslaught of modernity and the relentless, seemingly mindless
development that comes with it, the city’s population of stray cats is being squeezed out.
Hence gentrification takes on a new, more inhumane meaning, one that speaks to concerns
beyond status and access. Cats are survivors, it is pointed out, but they are being forced
— like people — out of natural habitats and established cultural centers and into the cold
concrete jungle with its toxic denial of the fundamental rhythms of life.
Since the so-called Enlightenment, if not from the beginning of history, humanity’s
arrogance and shortsighted destructiveness have increased, while our sacred connection
to the cosmos (call it God, for lack of better term) has atrophied, in seemingly inverse
proportion. Kedi finds the endangered cats of Istanbul to be a symbol of our fall from grace.
We are poor stewards. In mythic terms, the ejection from Eden is not an isolated event; it
continues apace. Maybe we should put ourselves on the endangered list.
Or maybe we should take a lesson from the cats. Another person in the film suggests
that it’s impossible to love human beings if you don’t love animals, and after witnessing the
way Istanbul’s street cats grant something like grace to the several human lives with which
the cats interact, the truth of this becomes devastatingly clear.
And this brings me to a chilling realization about my own little city: Banning dogs in
downtown Eugene is nothing short of banning people, and it reveals love for neither. I don’t
know what the opposite of a purr is, but it’s what I feel when I think of where we might be
heading if we don’t break this terrible momentum now hurtling us blindly forward.
I think I’ll go home and talk to my cats. (Broadway Metro)
Local beer, wine and cider... & now kombucha on tap!
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a ro
und the
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2833 Willamette • (541) 683-5903
www.harlequinbeads.com
plank town
presents
baby&me
MATINEE SCREENINGS FOR
PARENTS WITH INFANTS
43 W. BROADWAY
(541) 686-2458
REGULAR
ADMISSION
$9 ADULTS
$8 STUDENTS
$6 SENIORS
$6 BEFORE 5 PM
OPEN EVERY DAY
KEDI, LAND OF MINE OR
WILSON
WED 10:00
COMING SOON: RAW, T2
TRAINSPOTTING, PERSONAL
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TIX $5 SUN & MATINEES
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FRI MAR 31ST - THUR APR 6TH
1 OSCAR WIN
SING
4:15
HIDDEN FIGURES
4:25
FENCES
6:15
LA LA LAND
6:40
20TH CENTURY
WOMEN
8:40
LION
8:55
eugeneweekly.com • March 30, 2017
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