Trick of the Old Cat

Concept of “Trick of the Old Cat” came to me long ago, but just couple years back, after some personal experiences with people I knew, I decided to return to “Trick” and develop it fully. Main idea is the usual belief about guardian angels is that they’re always near those whom they protect in some spectral form and that they posses super-natural, magical powers to help theirs wards. In “Trick” I question this belief - what if this is wrong? What if guardian angels actually need to go by a lot of rules and regulations, like, they must posses body of ordinary mortal being, they cannot use any magical force, they can not directly interfere in life of their wards, only indirectly lead them to the right path and thoughts? What if angels must undergo serious steps of exams, under guidance of more experienced colleagues?

Playing with that idea, I developed and wrote first three main characters - rookie, optimistic and smiley angel Flowie, and her mentor - grumpy and full of irony veteran Butch, with a tendency to abuse alcohol. Their task for the day - to stop their ward - Mikki - from taking that one single wrong step in his life.

This film also researches two main themes. First one is choice and how it affects those, who are around us. Mikki, being stubborn, keeps proceeding, despite all efforts of his angels, unaware, that his doing will harm him, his close ones and even his angels - for Flowie it is her first experience, which is also a final exam. If she fails, this desired path will be closed to her forever.

Second theme is about corner stones of humanity - connection between sacrifice and value of one man life. How big can be first one, and how necessary in our modern days can be saving of simple human soul? Mikki’s self destructive habits forces his angels to cross the line, take some forbidden steps, and this is just for the safety of one man, who doesn’t even realize the price of this efforts till the end.

From creative aspect, my upfront goal was to show unreal, almost magical coincidence, without actually showing any elaborate special effects, to show an ordinary, plain world, and then place in it my characters and make some unnatural story happen. Carefully picked up props, sets and color palette was to create atmosphere in which guardian-angels suppose to work everyday - in our already old, pale, colors-faded world. While Butch with his wardrobe and his car fits in like natural part of this universe, Flowie shows drastic contrast - with small colorful elements of her clothes, and even her brightly-red hair, representing good and warm parts of life and human soul.

In the end, I feel I was able to achieve my goal, as almost everybody who seen this movie noted that “It have simple but strong message about value of human life”. Maybe, as my characters, I was not able to save the day in a big way, but at least I was able to send out message to those, who have seen and will see this movie, guide them to a thoughts of being a bit more human and caring to each other in our color-faded and pale world.