The Zookeeper's Wife

2017 "They gave all they had to save all they could"
7| 2h6m| PG-13| en| More Info
Released: 31 March 2017 Released
Producted By: Scion Films
Country: United States of America
Budget: 0
Revenue: 0
Official Website: http://www.focusfeatures.com/thezookeeperswife/
Synopsis

The account of keepers of the Warsaw Zoo, Jan and Antonina Zabinski, who helped save hundreds of people and animals during the Nazi invasion.

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The Movie Diorama Another saturated topic, we typically get two or three WWII films a year. Frustratingly, this is another typical holocaust film and one that will not standout against the packed crowd. In saying that though, this is an excellent "story" film to which I was fully immersed. A factual fictionalisation of the Warsaw Zoo surviving WWII where both animals and humans are in danger. The owners soon start to hide Jewish residents within the zoo in an attempt to save their lives from the Nazi holocaust. I expected a film about zookeepers and nearby residents saving animals from Nazi capture, boy was I completely wrong. The zoo animals only take precedent during the first fifteen minutes, and then the narrative's focus is purely on the owners, Jews and the Nazi regime. Soul draining is how I would describe this. It's bleak, depressing and not an ounce of happiness until the last five minutes. Director Niki Caro captures the horror of the holocaust and does not shy away from the brutality of it. She evokes powerful imagery that isn't portrayed in the film, we see a young girl being taken into a tunnel by two Nazi soldiers. We don't see what happens, but the detail in every scene enables us to imagine the terror that unfolded. Another synonymous scene would be when Jewish children are carried onto a train. We know where it's going, but the story never informs us. It's subliminal, and that might be due to the over saturation of this genre. Jessica Chastain stars as the eponymous character in what is one of her more nuanced performances, but emotionally vulnerable. When she cries, my God I feel it. Daniel Brühl was also captivating as the Nazi zoologist. Would I have liked the focus to be strictly on the zoo animals? Yes. It would've been different, less generic and perhaps more emotive. Can I complain about what was presented instead? No. A perfectly good WWII drama that is harrowingly depressing which will not set the cinematic world alight.
cybrsrch Tragic, hard to stomach, needless. Sad, if you want to ruin your day, to make you feel horrible and witness atrocities against animals then this film is right up your alley. It is like watching faces of death on loop
tubaman-8 I don't usually write reviews, but I saw this movie last night and after reading some of the reviews on this page I had to respond. This movie apparently brought out the Nazi apologists who found it necessary to write reviews about how the Nazis "weren't that bad" and why do movies keep depicting them that way. These revisionists need to be called out for what they are, white supremacists.This movie tells the true story about a family that used their zoo to rescue 300 Jews from death in the Warsaw Ghetto or ultimately death in a death camp, which is what happened to most of the people who survived the ghetto before it was burned down. These revisionists are trying to say that the Nazis weren't that bad, but I was on the board of directors of the Holocaust Center of Central Florida in the mid 90s and knew a number of holocaust survivors quite well. Their stories if anything make the events portrayed in this film somewhat tame in comparison. The Nazis should have been portrayed as even more callous and evil to be accurate. As for the movie, I did find that it wasn't the most effective telling of this true story. A number of embellishments were made to the story, I assume for dramatic effect, but many of them just didn't work. To me some of them made what was already an incredible story become completely implausible. I'm not going into detail so as not to give out any spoilers, but I suggest that people should read the book if they want to know the real heroism of this couple. I also found the dialog somewhat stilted at times and the story presented in a somewhat disjointed way.Still, the movie provides another reminder of the evil that was Nazi Germany and how there were people who heroically risked their lives to try to fight back against it. I may have liked it more if I hadn't already known the story and read the book, but overall I found it to be a good, if not great movie.
willowwear00 As others have written, we've seen this formula many times before: Righteous Christians put their lives in danger to rescue Jews during the Holocaust. As a Jew whose people came from Poland and Germany, I thank the Zookeeper and his wife. And yes, the usual Jew haters always show up on IMDb to claim the Holocaust is a fraud. Good luck with that.I liked this movie because it tells a story without going over the top, which many Holocaust movies do. The fact that it happens in a zoo makes it different.But it also must be said: The vast majority of Poles LOATHED the Jews and were thrilled to see the Germans murder them. Indeed, even after the war. Poles would pray upon freed concentration camp victims and murder them. A movie such as this shouldnt scrub the dirt from Polish hands.