Alternate Reality TV: The Racialicious Review of Cat Scratch Fever

Duva doesn’t reference  any television shows in the film; instead Fever owes much to films like Celine and Julie Go Boating, Daisies, and the paradox of Schrodinger’s Cat. In the visuals used to show Lisa and Ashley’s lives in alternate dimensions, though, there are several touches of other inspirations–particularly within the life Lisa finds herself embedded in as a mother, an attachment that plays out diastrously in this reality.

Between the natural light (the film has little, if any, staged lighting), the drums accompanying much of her fantasy, and the focus on the connection between Lisa and her (technically) unborn child, Fever is also reminiscent of Julie Dash’s Daughters of the Dust, a Black independent film that deals with different subject matter but also dabbles in elements of the supernatural and fantastic and female relationships.

Fever isn’t a perfect film, and I believe it could have benefitted from higher production values, and a tighter and longer script that would have allowed it to fully explore the critique on reality television and being constantly “plugged in,” along with being able to expand on the alternate dimensions presented. However, to capture any tendril of Dash’s film in a feature debut is impressive and is something for Duva to be proud of. Beyond Duva’s ambitious subject matter lies an excellent look at female friendships that isn’t just rarely seen in science-fiction, but in most popular media.

Cat Scratch Fever (dir. Lisa Duva) debuted on June 2, 2012 as part of the Brooklyn Film Festival where it won for Best Editing and also took home the Audience Award for Best Feature Film.

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