Puss! The Booted Cat (1995)

• 65%
• 1995
• Caroline Koebel

Puss! The Booted Cat is an erotic short that laps up various incarnations of the classic fairytale Puss-In-Boots. The tale, popularized in 17th c. France by author Charles Perrault, is here transformed into a contemporary adventure of unrequited love, lands-titles-and-goods-to-be-conquered, identities-to-be-claimed, and feminine feline power. The heroine, who is both the woman Mademoiselle Puss and Puss the cat, battles loss and misfortune with irrepressible rebellious energies. At last she is able to relax in her throne of the Bubastis Queendom, enjoying music, dance, and a most unusual mushroom—it had once been the ogre whose vengeance is the catalyst of this particular episode in one of her nine lives. The film's black-and-white images, intertitles, nonsynchronous sound, low tech "tricks," and theatricalized acting style borrow from early cinema even as its modern day references, fast paced editing, and feminist sensibility place it paws down in the present.