In the film, Robinson finds a cat and a dog which survived the shipwreck. Now after a year living on the island with the cat and dog, the female cat suddenly has kittens. And then Robinson says: "How did you find a partner?, I guess it's a mystrey I'll never find out". And we really don't find out till the end of the movie. There are no other cats on the island obviously so it might be a delibirate goof.
Jonathan Fain
[email protected]
It seems there had to be one male cat somewhere on the island, but was probably wild and stayed hidden from Crusoe. So, I don't think there's any real mystery in HOW Sam got pregnant, but the mystery lies in WHERE the male cat was!
sharesurely its a virgin birth? There's so much other Christian imagery.
shareHa!
Never thought of that.
Clever.
I used to want to change the world. Now I just want to leave the room with a little dignity.
[deleted]
You should calm down and ignore isms. The film largely concerns Robinson Crusoe's inability to live without his possessions and Christian world view. EG his obsession to make bread, refusal to discuss the bible. Bunuel made more types of films than just "ruptures of everyday realism by something impossible". You might say the ealry and late stuff was more in that line but not so much the Mexican stuff. Call it what you want - a cat having a virgin birth is pretty funny to me. Though I like the idea that its a "good clean movie".
I too thought about the cat symbolizing Virgin Mary.
shareIn the book, the island has feral cats on it, and the ship's cat mates with one of those. Crusoe is totally unsentimental when it comes to animals (apart from the dog), killing goats and their kids, the kittens, a dolphin and a parrot. Harsh times call for harsh measures.
shareDidn't ships always keep cats on board to keep rats in check anyway? I know that I have seen on TV documentaries that this has always been a problem in the destruction of native species on uninhabited islands.
share[deleted]
Usually people likes to see on any Buñuel film actually more than there is. Like the box from "Belle de Jour" or the snail in "Nazarín".
IMO there are no further or magical explanations. or any explanation at all. As Robinson Crusoe said "it's a mistery and we'll never found out"
Simply the cat had kittens, how? It doesn't really matters. But Buñuel allows you to think whatever you want about it.
Based on the comment above concerning the use of cats on ships to control the rats, I think the easiest explanation for the cat's pregnancy is to simply assume that at least one other cat made it to shore and lived on the island, eating small rodents. When the female cat went into heat, a male cat picked up the scent and just did what comes naturally.
It also seems reasonable that when the kittens got old enough to get around on their own the mother and her kittens started hunting too, becoming less and less dependent on Crusoe. Eventually they just didn't come back.
Of course, I supposed it's possible that the kittens were the result of virgin birth, and one of them became the Messiah of a feline religion.
CATholicism!
[deleted]
[deleted]
He wasn't half the talent that even Val Lewton was.
[deleted]
You shouldn't get angry with yourself. All the insults you are saying are the things that you hate about yourself. It's called projection, a mental disorder; deal with it.
You need more introspection and less stupidity.
By your logic I, too, must suffer from a mental disorder because I agree with bluedoctor's comments about Bunuel completely. I didn't realize this was one of his movies until after it ended and I came here to rate it. Had I known I would not have watched it. I have a strong distaste for his work and have sworn off his movies for good.
shareIn the Book, Defoe clearly points out that there were cats on the island and that the cat from the shipwreck mated with them. Robinson took some time to figure that out. No mistery.
shareIn the movie he says that's one of the few things he never figured out; how the cat ended up having kittens.
We know it wasn't a virgin birth so obviously the cat 'ran into' another cat on the island at some point. Why it's such a big issue I don't know.
Crusoe was on the island a long time before he discovered the natives came there on occasion. He doesn't understand what happened because he never saw another cat but cats roam so he wasn't around it twenty four-seven.
Also, it's possible a cat came with the natives and left when they did; 'meeting' his cat during that time.
The same thing happens in the novel. So Crusoe eventually assumes that his female kitten got mated with one of the wild cats that populate the island. It's not rocket science, is it?
share