Paul Schrader's Cat People is nothing short of a masterpiece, and the most potent cinematic portrayal of a man's obsession with a woman since Vertigo.
Firstly, it is a visual and auditory feast. It has the bold color and atmospheric haze of an Impressionist painting, combined with the detail and texture of a spy plane photograph. The first shot of the film establishes it's striking stylishness: swirling crimson sands are washed away by a howling gale to reveal a field of human bones. An unforgettable image of desolation, presided over by David Bowie's hummed version of the main theme which sounds as though a chanted prayer for deliverance has been carried by the winds. Schrader and Scarfiotti's collaboration had already created the iconic look of American Gigolo, and here that aesthetic is taken to new heights. Every shot is beautifully framed and dripping with atmosphere and subtle detail. Colored lights and shadow dance across faces and objects in a sensuous dance macabre, the ochre sands turn to a shimmering crystalline blue in the desert night, neon signs cast a refracted glow on wet nighttime New Orleans streets, a sheer nightgown blows in the breeze of an open moonlight balcony, a torrent of blood splashes white shoes before circling a floor drain. The soundtrack is of equal quality, Giorgio Moroder simply outdoes himself. Pounding, reverb drenched drums and basslines give way to waterfalls of electric piano and soft synth leads and back again, with the suspense sequences backed by a churning atonal dark ambience. Of course the theme song is a Bowie classic, it's evocative lyricism highlighting McDowell's character's plight as an outsider tormented by longing and resigned to his accursed fate.