''The Case of the Grinning Cat'' (original French title: ''Chats Perchés'') is a 2004 essay film by

Left Bank In geography, a bank is the land alongside a body of water. Different structures are referred to as ''banks'' in different fields of geography. In limnology (the study of inland waters), a stream bank or river bank is the terrain alongsid ...

filmmaker

Chris Marker Chris Marker (; 29 July 1921 – 29 July 2012) (born ''Christian-François Bouche-Villeneuve'') was a French writer, photographer, documentary film director, multimedia artist and Essay#Film, film essayist. His best known films are ''La Jetée' ...

. The film documents the mysterious M. Chat graffiti appearing around

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

, juxtaposed with post-

9/11 The September 11 attacks, also known as 9/11, were four coordinated Islamist terrorist suicide attacks by al-Qaeda against the United States in 2001. Nineteen terrorists hijacked four commercial airliners, crashing the first two into ...

political and international events of the early 2000s. The film is a sequel of sorts to Marker's 1977 film '' A Grin Without a Cat''.

Critical review

The film has a 7.2 rating on IMDb and a 94% critics rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

References

2000s French-language films 2004 films Documentary films about graffiti Films directed by Chris Marker 2000s French films {{2000s-France-film-stub