In scenes like these, although the audience is never shielded from the consequences the atrocities happening all around, Niki Caro spares us the graphic depiction of much of the violence. Shira Haas is terrific as Ursula in a stellar performance, delivering one of the film’s most powerful scenes as she sings the Passover Seder.
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When Jan is finally able to come to Urszula’s aid, we feel the full weight the soul-destroying moment that has befallen her. The moment is powerfully captured by Caro, hammering home the unspeakable horror of what is about to occur. On one such excursion he spots a young girl, Urszula, being dragged off the street by German soldiers, her eyes haunted and terrified. Jan is determined to save as many Jewish people as he can, roaming the dangerous streets and using his truck to take them back to the safety of the zoo. Director Niki Caro shines as as she gives us rare insight into the destruction of society, with shocking images of the brutality going on outside the zoo walls. When Jan leaves the relatively safe confines of the zoo to venture out to his devastated city, he encounters ruins at every turn. The cages and underground tunnels that once sheltered their animals, now serve to shelter threatened people. Their zoo becomes a fortress for humans rather than the animals. Bruhl has perfected the art of playing the villain to a point that our feelings of contempt for his deplorable characters seem almost instinctual, especially since Heck’s infatuation with Antonina adds another disturbing level of obsession to his role.Īs the horrors of the war deepen, Jan and Antonina turn their own emotional devastation into a quintessential act of humanitarianism and heroism as they put their own lives at risk with a fateful decision to save as many Jews a they can from persecution. We witness a horrifying transformation as the seeds of power-hungry zealotry grow within and he turns from being trusted friend to corrupt enemy.
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Lutz Heck, soon to be infamous as Hitler’s own zoologist who wanted to use the remaining zoo animals in Warsaw for selective breeding experiments back in Berlin.
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Her character fights against one of the most extreme examples of racism the world has ever seen by opening her heart and her home, and risking her life to take in refugees.ĭaniel Bruhl is brilliantly convincing as the genuinely diabolical Dr. Her weapon of choice is compassion and humanity. In The Zookeeper’s Wife, Chastain commands yet another outstanding performance as a historic heroine in war-torn Poland, but her character never reaches for a gun once, nor throws a punch. From Zero Dark Thirty, Commander Lewis in The Martian, the tenacious Miss Sloane and now The Zookeeper’s Wife, Chastain has immersed herself in roles that celebrate strong women. The empowering choices Chastain has made as an actress cannot go without notice.
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It’s a horror to watch, but it’s necessary in order to emphasize the pain that the Zabinskis experience.
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Be warned, the destruction of the zoo will make any animal-lover cringe. Most of the animals face a terribly sad fate. Their zoo is destroyed during a Nazi air attack and the lives of the Zabinskis change forever as the German army invades and infiltrates Warsaw. But this is 1939 Warsaw, and it’s inevitable that this tranquil existence won’t last long. The film’s prelude has many tender moments, including the birth of a baby elephant and ever-so-cute scenes with lion cubs. We see the Zabinskis caring affectionately for their animals, tending to their needs each morning with palpable love. The Zookeeper’s Wife is a touching and enormously gripping film starring Jessica Chastain as Antonina Zabinski and Johan Heldenbergh as her husband.Īntonina and Jan are zookeepers at the Warsaw Zoo, and with exemplary tenderness they run it less as a pen and more of a refuge for endangered animals. Set in a time when hatred and racism were rife and Jews were being tormented, persecuted and murdered, the astonishing true story of Antonina and Jan Zabinski is a powerful testimonial to individual heroism in the face of a madman’s cruel and twisted ideology.