Outside of the Japanese, the French have to be my favorite nationality when it comes to animators. I don't think anyone can touch the beauty of fluidity of French animation. The film that acted as my sherpa through the lush expanse of French cartoons was The Rabbi's Cat.
Based on Joann Sfar's comic of the same name, The Rabbi's Cat is a stunning work of magical realism with an incomparable visual style. As the title would indicate, the film's protagonist is the house cat of a rabbi that gains the power of speech after devouring a parrot. Armed with his new silver tongue, the cat begins courting his owner's daughter—who he mistakingly believes is his mistress—and plunges the family and the entire town into chaos.
The film is a rollicking romp that delves into religion's place in modernity, war, racism, and how to compartmentalize grief – all through the eyes of an atheist cat that wants to become Jewish to marry a human. You gotta love the French, man.
