One thing is for sure: Chris Marker’s cat Guillaume-en-Egypte (yes, that’s right, “William in Egypt”—whatevs) is no Maru, the wildly videogenic Japanese feline whose winsome antics catapulting himself in and out of cardboard boxes have made his owner a thousandaire many times over. In Marker’s 1990 short Chat écoutant la musique, Guillaume mostly snoozes atop an electronic keyboard as a lugubrious jazz piano theme by Federico Mompou emanates throughout the room. A couple times he looks around, and towards the end (drama!) he switches position. Hey, he’s a cat—mainly he snoozes.

Marker’s short film, one of five animal-related movies that comprised his Bestiaire, would probably fail as YouTube click bait, but it succeeds as a dreamy meditation by one of cinema’s most challenging experimental directors, best known for Sans Soleil and La Jétee, the latter of which Terry Gilliam (not Guillaume, not from Egypt) improbably transmogrified into the frenetic time-twisting thriller Twelve Monkeys.   
 

Previously on Dangerous Minds:
Chris Marker: ‘Bestiaire’ from 1990