Capsule: Cat City

Putting Fur Babies Back on the Corner

In the documentary, Cat City, two women are scrolling through a Facebook page they’ve set up so that Chicago residents can receive aid and advice on any issue they may be having with any of the city’s 200,000 some-odd feral cats. As they do so, they bemoan the intrusion of bleeding-heart ailurophiles and funny cat video fans onto what’s supposed to be a practical service. “’Bless you, thank God,’” one of them grouses. “No, don’t thank God. God didn’t drive out to Humboldt Park and pick up this cat in 100 degrees.”

If that sounds like a particularly prickly attitude to take toward the public’s tendency to regard these creatures as adorable li’l furballs, well, that’s one of the spells that director Ben Kolak is trying to break in providing a portrait of people whose love for cats must contend with the real-life issues and complications of dealing with felines once they’re out in the wild. The film is staged around a law that Chicago – more precisely Cook County – enacted in the twenty-aughts, making it illegal to kill feral cats while putting in place a system to certify volunteer “Cat Colony Caretakers” to locate the creatures and make sure they’re vaccinated and neutered.

It is, not surprisingly, not an easy task. The caretakers – which range from businesspeople to retirees to a tattooed genre nerd – must contend with challenges ranging from people who see nothing wrong with allowing the creatures to crank out kittens on a bi-annual basis, to animal shelter operators who go trolling through the poorer neighborhoods for shelf stock to sell to more affluent buyers, to birders who’d just as soon see what they consider an invasive species wiped off the face of the Earth. A law intended as humane comes crashing against issues of racism, gentrification, and conservation, with all involved conceding that no clear resolution is yet possible.

Kolak does his best to frame this complex dilemma within a running time of less than ninety minutes. In doing so, he perhaps spreads his net too wide, bringing in so many caretakers, adversaries, and general civilians that Cat City’s tone at times feels a bit jumpy. Nevertheless, he manages to establish the sincerity of all involved, and to respect their motives, whether they seek to safeguard or exterminate Chicago’s burgeoning feline population.

Just keep in mind: If you’re coming to see shots of cat’s being they’re wonderful little selves, you’ll get those, yeah, along with a sprinkling of the beasts indulging their more primal instincts – that includes the occasional kill shot and one pair caught in flagrante delicto. You have been warned.