The Perils of Priscilla (1969) dir. Carroll Ballard

Is good kitty.

There’s not a shortage of cat movies on the Internet. But this is probably the only one reportedly described as a masterpiece by Chris Marker and dubbed “pure cinema” by Alexander Payne.

Directed by the accomplished but often unsung Carroll Ballard (The Black Stallion, Fly Away Home) and shot by Stephen Burum (who would go on to become Brian  De Palma’s DP), The Perils of Priscilla quickly establishes a language that puts us in the furry socks of its main character. Beginning with a low point-of-view running along the ground (invoking the demonic presence in Sam Raimi’s Evil Dead), the film intercuts this direct replication of a cat’s vision and outside “third person” shots of the cat. Only occasionally does the film use a third person shot that doesn’t feature Priscilla and always to provide context for the next shot of her perspective. Sounds are amplified relative to their perceived threat (a vacuum, the sloppy crunches of a large dog stealing her food). One can see Payne’s point; it’s a very immersive experience created within the confines of cinematic language (as opposed to, say, the third-person-limited strategy of Stray, a videogame where the player assumes control of the feline protagonist).

Priscilla, to the best of my knowledge, is played by a single cat, and I don’t know if she’s trained or just has an incredibly patient crew around her (typically trained cats only have a single “trick” and multiple performers take turns playing the same cat depending on the action needed on camera). Like all on-camera animals, she’s a beneficiary of the Kuleshov effect that allows the editor to assign her adorable, inscrutable face emotions based on the shot showing the supposed object of her attention. This allows for trickery to keep her out of danger – a chase across a busy parking lot masterfully swaps between tracking shots of Priscilla running past parked cars and shots of cars in motion from her point of view that don’t actually feature the cat. The film still required some nasty surprises for its star. Priscilla couldn’t later look at the footage of her getting soaked by a sprinkler and understand why she was put in such distress.

The adventure is also a snapshot of unvarnished suburban Los Angeles in the late 1960s. And, as the source of funding is revealed as part of the surprisingly downer ending, one of cinema’s more well-regarded PSAs. Support your local shelter! And, especially after seeing the noisy, confusing world from a cat’s eyes, make sure to snuggle your fuzzy friends a little closer.