Be prepared to cry, but maybe not at the parts you anticipated.
The Zookeeper's Wife is in some ways exactly what you expect. It's a fairly straightforward-based on real life story of the Zabinskis, a husband and wife (Jessica Chastain and Johan Heldenbergh) team plus a son, who use their now empty zoo to help Jews escape Warsaw during World War II.
You've probably seen, read, or heard stories like this before: gentile family takes in Jews and political dissidents (although movies always seem to gloss over the dissidents. The only movies I can think of where they talk about political Holocaust refugees are the ones about the political refugee. And Casablanca is the only one I can think of right now) at great personal risk. There are many close calls. The story probably ends after an especially close call. The family may get away, they may not.
This movie was pretty much that, but with a very intense love of animals thrown in. Practically every character at some point snuggles an animal, usually little ones but there's a lot of variety.
So synapsis: it's early war and the Warsaw Zoo is a thriving place. The keepers meet Hitler's chief zoologist, Lutz Heck (played by Daniel Brühl, who apparently was in Captain America: Civil War but I have thoroughly forgotten him) and he helps them revive a baby elephant (I heard a few snippets of Dumbo in my head during the scene. In a completely non comical way. A big part of what I heard was "Baby Mine," so definitely more tear jerker than giggler). Then the war comes. An air raid over a zoo is a particularly terrible thing. It's very difficult to watch animals being clearly very scared of explosions, not to mention dying in them. And of course they wind up with some big predators walking around as enclosures are torn apart. And thus begins the first round of animals dying.
When the word comes that the zoo should be shuttered and the animals killed, Heck offers to send their prized stock to the Berlin Zoo as a loan, to save them. The Zabinskis accept (slash can't decline) and the best animals are carted off. When winter comes, the Nazis arrive and announce the animals won't survive the winter and begin to shoot them.
At this point, we meet Jewish friends of the Zabinskis and yours truly had her first moment of almost crying** because they are Jewish residents of 1939 Poland and therefore have Star of David armbands. The armbands hit me hard, I don't know why.
As the Zabinskis are faced with friends in danger and an empty zoo, they open up their attic to the wife of the couple, while the more well known husband goes to the ghetto. The resistance soon approaches them to hide more Jews away. They offer to the Nazis that they will use the empty zoo to farm pigs to feed the military and use that cover to secret Jews out of the ghetto.
This movie is really hard to watch. I actually almost walked out a couple of times. It isn't graphic or obviously horror. You would only expect a few scenes would have an obvious warning for viewer discretion. But you never forget the subject matter. The characters are constantly stressed and there's an enormous fear looming over your head as you watch, despite the lack of on screen violence.
I liked the lack of violence. I suspect some people will watch this and think they didn't show enough of the horror, they humanized the Nazis too much, and that it's disrespectful to the Holocaust. I disagree. The story was told through Antonina Zabinski's eyes and was mostly a little hazy. It worked. There was no illusion that violence wasn't happening, it just wasn't on screen. The Jews were a lot less surprised by the violence than the gentiles.
And I think it's important that they humanized Heck, good even. For a large part of the movie you find yourself thinking that in another time and another place the Zabinskis might have been able to be friends with him. He is a multi dimensional character. It's very very dangerous to imagine that only evil people who walk around announcing their innate evilness do evil things. Ordinary people can find themselves doing evil as well, and even innately evil people can do nice things. Watching Nazis should make you uncomfortable, not just because of the terrible things they do but because you hadn't entirely expected it of them.
WWII history classes like to show movies about the Holocaust. I sincerely hope this movie is added to teachers' libraries. If this gets shown instead of The Pianist I will be a very happy camper (and it covers the same important things as Polanski's movie without having to deal with Polanski's baggage. We see the Warsaw Ghetto, the uprising, the burning, and Jews being loaded onto trains), but I'll still be happy if it is shown at all.
I watched this movie as a Jewish woman in a world with rapidly rising rates of hate crimes. I often consider and then forgo wearing obvious symbols of my religion. I am completely unsurprised at the moments which hit me the hardest. If anyone from other faiths and backgrounds wants to discuss, I'd love to hear from you.
My recommendation? See this movie, but make sure you've got the energy for it.
***obligatory special shout out to the people who encouraged/pushed me to do more reviews***
**It's not that I'm hard hearted, but I tend to cry when the emotions on the screen rise, not when sad things happen. I'm a sympathetic cryer. Or if something hits especially close to home. Like this movie. Without spoilers I can't explain the moment that had me in full blown tears with heaving chest and sobs, but suffice to say it reminded me of some of my favorite moments in my own life.
The Zookeeper's Wife is in some ways exactly what you expect. It's a fairly straightforward-based on real life story of the Zabinskis, a husband and wife (Jessica Chastain and Johan Heldenbergh) team plus a son, who use their now empty zoo to help Jews escape Warsaw during World War II.
You've probably seen, read, or heard stories like this before: gentile family takes in Jews and political dissidents (although movies always seem to gloss over the dissidents. The only movies I can think of where they talk about political Holocaust refugees are the ones about the political refugee. And Casablanca is the only one I can think of right now) at great personal risk. There are many close calls. The story probably ends after an especially close call. The family may get away, they may not.
This movie was pretty much that, but with a very intense love of animals thrown in. Practically every character at some point snuggles an animal, usually little ones but there's a lot of variety.
So synapsis: it's early war and the Warsaw Zoo is a thriving place. The keepers meet Hitler's chief zoologist, Lutz Heck (played by Daniel Brühl, who apparently was in Captain America: Civil War but I have thoroughly forgotten him) and he helps them revive a baby elephant (I heard a few snippets of Dumbo in my head during the scene. In a completely non comical way. A big part of what I heard was "Baby Mine," so definitely more tear jerker than giggler). Then the war comes. An air raid over a zoo is a particularly terrible thing. It's very difficult to watch animals being clearly very scared of explosions, not to mention dying in them. And of course they wind up with some big predators walking around as enclosures are torn apart. And thus begins the first round of animals dying.
When the word comes that the zoo should be shuttered and the animals killed, Heck offers to send their prized stock to the Berlin Zoo as a loan, to save them. The Zabinskis accept (slash can't decline) and the best animals are carted off. When winter comes, the Nazis arrive and announce the animals won't survive the winter and begin to shoot them.
At this point, we meet Jewish friends of the Zabinskis and yours truly had her first moment of almost crying** because they are Jewish residents of 1939 Poland and therefore have Star of David armbands. The armbands hit me hard, I don't know why.
As the Zabinskis are faced with friends in danger and an empty zoo, they open up their attic to the wife of the couple, while the more well known husband goes to the ghetto. The resistance soon approaches them to hide more Jews away. They offer to the Nazis that they will use the empty zoo to farm pigs to feed the military and use that cover to secret Jews out of the ghetto.
This movie is really hard to watch. I actually almost walked out a couple of times. It isn't graphic or obviously horror. You would only expect a few scenes would have an obvious warning for viewer discretion. But you never forget the subject matter. The characters are constantly stressed and there's an enormous fear looming over your head as you watch, despite the lack of on screen violence.
I liked the lack of violence. I suspect some people will watch this and think they didn't show enough of the horror, they humanized the Nazis too much, and that it's disrespectful to the Holocaust. I disagree. The story was told through Antonina Zabinski's eyes and was mostly a little hazy. It worked. There was no illusion that violence wasn't happening, it just wasn't on screen. The Jews were a lot less surprised by the violence than the gentiles.
And I think it's important that they humanized Heck, good even. For a large part of the movie you find yourself thinking that in another time and another place the Zabinskis might have been able to be friends with him. He is a multi dimensional character. It's very very dangerous to imagine that only evil people who walk around announcing their innate evilness do evil things. Ordinary people can find themselves doing evil as well, and even innately evil people can do nice things. Watching Nazis should make you uncomfortable, not just because of the terrible things they do but because you hadn't entirely expected it of them.
WWII history classes like to show movies about the Holocaust. I sincerely hope this movie is added to teachers' libraries. If this gets shown instead of The Pianist I will be a very happy camper (and it covers the same important things as Polanski's movie without having to deal with Polanski's baggage. We see the Warsaw Ghetto, the uprising, the burning, and Jews being loaded onto trains), but I'll still be happy if it is shown at all.
I watched this movie as a Jewish woman in a world with rapidly rising rates of hate crimes. I often consider and then forgo wearing obvious symbols of my religion. I am completely unsurprised at the moments which hit me the hardest. If anyone from other faiths and backgrounds wants to discuss, I'd love to hear from you.
My recommendation? See this movie, but make sure you've got the energy for it.
***obligatory special shout out to the people who encouraged/pushed me to do more reviews***
**It's not that I'm hard hearted, but I tend to cry when the emotions on the screen rise, not when sad things happen. I'm a sympathetic cryer. Or if something hits especially close to home. Like this movie. Without spoilers I can't explain the moment that had me in full blown tears with heaving chest and sobs, but suffice to say it reminded me of some of my favorite moments in my own life.
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