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CINEMA SEEN - "Farewell to a Feline Friend" by William Margold  Death cheats!Or maybe I just took its name in vain, and tried to make a deal with it that wasn't worth its time. Two months ago, after bragging up the merits of Pogo, my magnificent Siamese cat (seen here tolerating me to share HIS couch), I audaciously expounded to an associate, "I would gladly trade five years off the end of my life, so I could have Pogo for five more years." I guess that Death didn't take such trivial offers seriously, because within three weeks, Pogo began to exhibit all the signs of a cat that was on his last legs. Having just celebrated his seventeenth birthday, and admittedly nowhere near as spry as he had been, Pogo was nevertheless still every bit the supremely sagacious, sweetly serene animal that had been my great love Viper's feline friend for three years, until she drove out of history into legend in 1991. But now he wasn't sleeping next to me. Now his attempts at meows came out as moans. Now, although he had been limping for many years, he staggered, and then fell down. And when once he would boldly rip my food from my hand, now he could only look at the pieces of chicken that I lay lovingly before his tortured body. I spent his final night with him on the floor of my apartment. I placed him gently on a heating pad, and thanked him until daylight for all of his eternal patience with me.and with Viper. It was during those final hours that I realized that Pogo had never really had a chance to ever be a kitten, because he had to take care of Viper from the moment she picked him up, and he became part of her lap. And after she left, he had to deal with my sorrow. In fact, in his first act of trying to help me heal, he climbed into my lap, looked at me with his mesmerizing blue eyes, and proceeded to rip one of his razor-sharp claws over a one inch long and at least half as deep portion of the inside of my right wrist. It hurt, but I didn't reprimand him, because I figured it was the only way that he could explain to me how much pain he was in as well. And fourteen years later, seeking to release him from his terminal pain, I took him into Laurel Pet Hospital, and sat with him in a room in which soothing music and tranquil colors belied that this was where he would draw his last breath. I made no attempt to stop the tears that were streaming down my cheeks as the doctor (a supremely consoling fellow named Moustafa T. Seoud) empathetically prepared the injection. I held Pogo's proud head, and said "see you later" as the needle entered him. His eyes, in their final instant of recognition, searched mine with a combination of very brief shock, and then peaceful gratitude, and I derived some solace that his last image of me would be my of sorrow-wracked eyes reflecting love, admiration, and genuine respect. That I've finally been able to write about this painful experience, is the first step in recovery for me, as well as providing Pogo with a resting place in the journalistic scrapbook that will eventually comprise the book about me: "Playpen of the Damned!"  And speaking of damned, since this is the Cinema Seen page, I can give Death some more due here by commenting on SIN CITY (Dimension Films), the sporadically compelling collaboration between director Robert Rodriguez and Frank Miller---whose "graphic novel" the film has been ripped from with a "kiss no ass, take no prisoners" attitude. Fractured, fitful, and at times even foolish, the production, presented in saturated black-and-white (with color splattered in for effect.and affect) is a mix-mastered blend of truly hell-bent heroes, and Hell-deserving villains. Eventually the film wears you out, but before it does, some of its images will shake you up. Particularly impressive is the tortured tale of Marv, soulfully etched by Mickey Rourke, (pictured on this page covered in bandages), whose crushing pursuit of revenge conjures up images of one of those odd tragic-looking SUV beasts in the rodeo-themed TV ads. Bruce Willis (complete with an X carved into his forehead) is what amounts to the film's star, and his anger-filled adventures takes him in-and-out and back into the world of dancer/damsel in distress Jessica Alba. And Clive Owen (quite possibly the next James Bond) is aided by a carnal chorus line of Bob Fosse wet dreams, which are anything but "sweet charities."And like the basis for my writing this page, Death doesn't play any favorites in "Sin City"--- which essentially validates how really unfair and futile the fearing of it really is. Or how painful it can be if you try to make a deal with it! end NOTE: Originally published in LA Xpress, May 5, 2005 issue. |