THE CASE OF THE GRINNING CAT

(three stars)

LEAVE it to Chris Marker, the 85-year-old French documentarian and cineaste hero, to take an unexceptional event and turn it into an exceptional film.

The event is the appearance in the early 2000s of stenciled images of a smiling yellow cat high on buildings all over Paris and in the Metro.

The film is “The Case of the Grinning Cat,” Marker’s playful look at the City of Light.

Using the Cheshire cats as a starting points, Marker takes his camera to the streets, dropping in on any number of events – from anti-war (“Make cats, not war,” one placard proclaims) and anti-AIDS to pro-Falun Gong and pro-Muslim.

Sounds boring, but it’s not, thanks to Marker’s whimsical irreverence.

“The Case of the Grinning Cat” is screening with a series of Marker’s short films about animals and music.

In one, an elephant uses his trunk to throw gravel over his body, set to the strains of Stravinsky.

Total running time: 75 minutes. Not rated (nothing to worry about). At the Film Forum, Houston Street west of Sixth Avenue.