Before the Aristocats played the piano and the Cheshire Cat confused young Alice with cryptic statements, it was painter Louis Wain’s (1860-1939) cats who smoked cigars while playing cards or chatted at tea parties. The Briton helped the cat climb into the bourgeoisie – into those circles that made life difficult for him.
Accompanied by the voice of Olivia Colman, the film “The Wondrous World of Louis Wain” by director Will Sharpe now tells the wondrous life of the eccentric artist. In Victorian London, Wain (Benedict Cumberbatch) earns a living by painting animals to support his five sisters. The young man promptly falls in love with Emily, the girls’ governess (Claire Foy). The scandal is great, because the beloved is of low status and not wealthy, a thorn in the side of the bourgeoisie. Despite all the resistance of the strict sisters, the two marry, but the young happiness does not last long. Emily dies of breast cancer and Louis takes refuge in his art.
Inspired by the cat Peter, whom the young couple once rescued, the quirky artist now devotes himself to the cat, which in his drawings takes on more and more human features, adjusts his peaked cap while playing golf or strolls through the streets of London with a walking stick and monocle. As the writer HG Wells once said, “He has made the cat his own. He invented a style of cat, a society of cats, a whole world of cats.” In the late nineteenth century, when the dog was already a coddled member of the family, the only thing left for the cat was the reputation of a roving mouse catcher. However, postcard motifs and greeting cards by Louis Wain increased the reputation of the cat. Accompanied by a choral “meow, meow”, the painter is appointed president of the national cat club – an artist as the cat’s advocate.
The direction meticulously follows the life of Wain, who is caught up in a whirlpool of delusions of pervasive electricity connecting the past to the future. His mental decline is reflected in his pictures: the cat’s eyes are getting bigger, the fur is shaggy, the colors are brightly colored. Ornamental and kaleidoscopic forms give the drawings a psychedelic character. As if in a fever dream, Louis suddenly sees people with oversized cat heads. Diagnosis: schizophrenia. Today he would probably be described as neurodiverse.
