Joann Sfar, French graphic novelist (The Rabbi’s Cat) and film maker (Gainsbourg: A Heroic Life), questions authority, though he’s evidently conventionally religious. So also does the cat in his tale. Suddenly able to speak, the cat demands to learn Jewish law, have a bar mitzvah, and study Kabbalah. He has long disputes with his owner, the rabbi, and the rabbi's own master rabbi -- who says a talking philosophical cat should be drowned. It's a very funny book, with beautiful drawings of North Africa in some former time, where the rabbi and his daughter live.In an interview several years ago, Sfar said:
“My rabbi is not a modern guy. He’s very old-fashioned. He’s not an intellectual—his relationship with religion is very down-to-earth. He doesn’t really care about God’s existence. He just cares about what he has to do every day. I like the idea of his coming back from Paris and saying that he doesn’t know if there’s a God or not, and then he goes to pray. Many people forget about this relationship to religion as a daily practice. But I’ve always preferred the sayings of my grandma to the dictates of my grand rabbin.”I hope to see Sfar's new documentary on French singer Serge Gainsbourg, whom I've heard of but never have known anything about.
Update: New York Times review of the film is here.
