Le Chat ([lə ʃa], "The Cat") is a 1971 French-language drama film directed by Pierre Granier-Deferre and based on Georges Simenon's 1967 novel The Cat. It recounts the story of an elderly married couple, Julien Bouin, a former typographist, and his wife Clemence, who used to perform in a circus, who have been loathing each other for years. They hardly talk to each other in their small house, soon to be demolished. Their only form of communication being occasional notes on scraps of paper. A stray cat being the only one he still gives affection to, the cat becomes the object of Clemence's anger. However, they are soon to understand that they cannot live without each other. The storyline of The Cat is speculated to have originated from Georges Simenon's difficult relationship with his mother.