Rent-a-cat, therapy for loneliness

Stop the presses — or take that finger off the “Publish” button.

Someone’s just made a live action movie starring cats.

We’ve noted the dearth of substantial roles for cats in recent movies, which is not only unjust but illogical since cats are great screen presences. You don’t even have to write a part specifically for a cat: just find an elegant character with an air of superiority and put a cat in the role. But how will the cat deliver her lines, you ask.

Simple, you get a human to dub the dialogue. You should try it, it can only improve the movie. Don’t even explain what the cat is doing there, just carry on as if it’s the most normal thing in the world.

Viewers will think it’s a psycho-drama, or a European art-house flick.

The new movie with cats is a comedy by Ogigami Naoko entitled Rent-a-Cat. It is about a young girl who helps the heartbroken — by renting them cats. She goes around pushing a handcart full of cats, addressing would-be customers through a bullhorn. I haven’t seen it, but what a storyline.

Leggy 2 by Budjette Tan

True, her business model probably wouldn’t catch on in the Philippines. If lonely people need a cat they only have to step out of the building and go “Ming ming ming, sssswwssswwsss...” and maybe wave an open can of sardines, and presto, feline friend. However, scientific research supports the movie’s premise that having a feline companion reduces loneliness. Feeling a connection with another living creature alleviates one’s sadness. As a bonus you can name the cat “Channing Tatum.” How lonely can you be if you’re going home to snuggle up with Channing Tatum?

Apart from helping to reduce loneliness, the company of cats has been proven to lower the risk of heart attack and stroke. Many people hesitate to adopt cats because they think cat fur and dander (skin flakes and dried drool in their fur) will give them asthma. In 2001 researchers at the University of Virginia Asthma and Allergic Disease Center established that children who live with cats can develop an immune response which prevents them from developing asthma. According to the study published in the medical journal The Lancet, children are as likely to have immunity to cats as to be allergic to them.

Other studies indicate that living with cats helps reduce anxiety and even depression. Caring for cats diverts your attention from your problems; it takes your mind off your mind.  You have a reason to get out of bed: you need to clean the litterbox to get rid of the stink wafting from the bathroom. In fact cats will drag you out of bed by staring at you until you get up and refill their food dish or change the water in their bowls. They’re certainly cuddlier than antidepressants and have no side effects other than the compulsion to post pictures of your cats on the Internet. Cats: a veritable center for disease control. (Look what happened when the cat population in Europe decreased: the rat population exploded, spreading bubonic plague).

Cat in shop window, Tokyo by Boboy Consunji

Of course Rent-a-Cat is by the Japanese, who love cats so much they invented cat cafes where humans and felines could hang out in a convivial atmosphere. Cats have a special place in Japanese culture: apart from the ubiquitous lucky waving cat there are feline characters in the novels of renowned authors such as Haruki Murakami and Natsume Soseki. The narrator of  Soseki’s I Am A Cat is a cat; the book was adapted  for film by the great Kon Ichikawa. (According to our friend the Japanese translator the more correct title is “We Are A Cat”).

The most famous cat on the Internet is probably Maru, a Scottish fold (so called because the breed has a mutation that causes their ears to fold forward and down) who lives in Japan. Maru has “authored” two books and counting, and his daily antics — tobogganing across the floor in cardboard boxes, squeezing into gaps between the furniture — are chronicled in his blog.'

Rent-a-Cat is the opening film at the 14th Far East Film Festival in Udine, Italy in April. Italy, another country that loves cats.

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Our Feline Friends: Leggy

Talking to Mat by the author

My friends Budjette and Brandie had no intention of adopting a cat, but six years ago a cat adopted them.

“My brother Brandie and his friend Tin were walking home one night when this kitten started following them,” Budjette recalls. “Brandie wanted to keep the cat but his apartment didn’t allow pets. So he called me up, a little past midnight, to come and pick up the cat.

“We were supposed to the bring the cat to the Philippine Animal

Welfare Society the next day, but my mom decided to keep him. Brandie called the cat Legaspi, after the street where they found him. My mom started calling him Leggy and the name has stuck.”