“Are we smart enough to know how smart animals are?” is both the title of and the central ethical question that frames Frans de Waal’s 2016 book on animal studies. In his writing, de Waal details how primatology and ethology have evolved from approaching their living subjects as crude objects of scientific inquiry to communal beings with complex, immeasurable interior lives. While ambitious and well-intentioned, there is one disconcerting element found in de Waal’s argument: As the title of his book alludes, it is only through recognizing a specific species’ expression of intelligence that we are able to gauge to what degree that species might demand our respect. Respect, it is held, must be earned through the exhibition of intelligence. We can certainly live in a healthier, more moralistic world in which we care for animals and thus the environment, but it first requires our ability to locate the distinct intelligence of each animal. Why do we need proof of intelligence at all in order to respect another species?

 

For a more constructive approach to animal studies we might turn to Ceyda Torun’s recent documentary Kedi (2016), a poetic, revelatory film about street cats in Istanbul. Kedi contains no interviews with lab coat-wearing doctors explaining the different breeds of cats. There are no titles informing us of the average lifespan of a cat. There are no voice-over monologues telling us how to treat cats properly. Instead, we receive stories from individuals who consider specific cats (or groups of cats) to be actors in their everyday life, if only in a cursory, indirect way. Cats are therefore not the objects of study in Kedi. The object of study is how our relationship with cats forms a fabric of Istanbul.

 

The approachable, human dimension of the film offers a differing perspective than that of a pure, scientific framework. The documentarian does not pin moments down for examination as an anatomist might or construct environments with artificial lights that might help us access hidden details as in a laboratory; rather, Kedi seeks to capture a slice of the city as it lives. For example, the storytellers/cat observers featured in the film are too busy cooking, cleaning, or smoking a cigarette to even provide the cameraman with their whole attention. This technique produces a stronger sense of trust from the viewer because we feel we are intimately observing Istanbul when it is unguarded. The overall effect of this informality is to assure us that we are directly perceiving human and feline inhabitants the way they truly interact.

 

The city itself is presented as an ecosystem with its own streams of communal life. Humans are revealed to be perpetually “becoming-with” rather than merely living alongside the street cats. Like Jiro Dreams of Sushi (2011), Kedi is a documentary about how our relation to nonhumans informs our relations to fellow humans. Jiro presents a direct link between how renowned sushi chef Jiro Ono prepares his plates as a sign of respect for both the dead, soon-to-be-consumed fish and the person who will digest it. As a sushi chef he not only prepares and consumes fish, he also exhibits a strong concern for their decaying ecosystems. His disciplined, arduous method for preparing his plates reveals a religious admiration for these nonhumans, an appreciation for their rich life-giving nourishment, and a duty to care for the health of the potential consumer. The act of digestion thus takes the form of sacred ritual that honors a scene of great relational complexity between human, nonhuman, and ecosystem. Refusing human exceptionalism and shaping what Donna Haraway calls “response-abilities” provide the moral posture of films like Jiro Dreams of Sushi and Kedi. They reveal solidarity between humans and nonhumans without reverting to explanatory discourse.

 

Kedi is an example of ethical documentary filmmaking because it attempts to capture Istanbul as the city continues its daily life. It maintains the integrity of the space between curious documentarian and fascinating object of study. This gesture is duly reflected in the relations between the people in the film and the cats they encounter. Respect is defined as distance. Close physical proximity, meanwhile, demands an understanding of shared space. Kedi therefore performs a constructive reframing of de Waal’s question: We should not be asking if we are smart enough to know how smart animals are; rather, we should be asking if we are we smart enough to recognize that respect is the greatest expression of intelligence.