Of course we have seen many stories of the Holocaust brought to the screen, and though this one never reaches the heights of Schindler’s List it has its own place of honor and that is largely due to the sheer will of Antonina and the unwavering heart and humanity she displays not only for the people but also her animals. This is the least successful part of Workman’s script as it ventures from the core of the remarkable story and drifts into more conventional melodrama, but the main themes of the film cannot be ignored, and Caro is skillful in building suspense throughout as the Zabinskis’ elaborate operation also involves shepherding the stowaways through a collection of tunnels underneath the zoo. The relationship between the two becomes tense as he falls for her, and engages sexually while she complies in order to keep the Zabinskis’ secret intact. The effort gets complicated when Nazi zoologist Lutz Heck (Daniel Bruhl) arrives with the offer of sending some of the most prized animals to Germany, where they would take part in a breeding program to produce superior species.
HISTORICAL CONTEXT THE ZOOKEEPERS WIFE SERIES
Jessica Chastain Teams With Todd Komarnicki & Christina Wayne For 1960s NASA Event Series Essentially they took the place of caged animals in escaping the wrath of the Germans, all thanks to the heroic efforts of the Zabinskis but particularly Antonina, who used all her wiles to save these people in dire circumstances.
With her husband Jan (Johan Heldenbergh) they ran the Warsaw Zoo, and during the Nazi invasion turned it into a haven to hide hundreds of Jews during the course of the war. Deadlineīased on Diane Ackerman’s gut-wrenching and powerful book, The Zookeeper’s Wife stars Jessica Chastain in another superb performance as Antonina Zabinski. As I say in my video review above, director Niki Caro ( Whale Rider, McFarland USA, North Country) and screenwriter Angela Workman have crafted an inspiring and uniquely humane film that stays with you long after you leave the theater. In this case, the proverbial bars aren't intended to keep the Guests in, but to keep the Nazis out.Nazis, zoo animals and a remarkable true and uplifting story of one woman’s courage and resistance in sheltering 300 Polish Jews during World War II combine for a powerful, riveting and emotionally devastating film The Zookeeper’s Wife, which chronicles yet another little-known aspect of that momentous time. At the zoo, "Guests in flight from the Ghetto found villa life a small Eden, complete with garden, animals, and motherly bread maker" (14.12).īy welcoming refugees into their home, Antonina and Jan allow the zoo to still be a sanctuary, albeit a safe haven to animals of the human persuasion.
HISTORICAL CONTEXT THE ZOOKEEPERS WIFE FULL
Being skilled zookeepers enables them to hide Jewish refugees when World War II goes into full swing. Whatever the intention of that word, one thing is sure: without any animals, the zoo has no purpose.
Do you think this word choice planned or coincidence, and does it mean anything? Antonina-or maybe it's Ackerman-seems to equate the destruction of the zoo with the destruction of the world as a whole, since she uses the word "liquidation" when referring to both the extermination of zoo animals and the Holocaust (7.15, 20.5). The Germans, who do animal testing in a weird attempt to build purebred animals, confiscate or kill most of the animals at the zoo. However, the zoo isn't a permanent safe haven.
Antonina often welcomes (smaller, tamer) animals into her home, showing us how she freely blends human life with animal life. The animals don't just live in cages, either. Antonina sees the animals' presence as a learning opportunity, a way to get in touch with her animal instincts and to better herself. Here lived the wild, that fierce beautiful monster, caged and befriended" (1.7). "She believed that meeting at the zoo widened a visitor's view of nature, personalized it, gave it habits and names. In the early 1940s, before the Internet and TV, zoos were one of the only places to see wild animals move around in their natural environments, or at least in facsimiles of those natural environments.Īs The Zookeeper's Wife, Antonina of course supports the zoo's mission. It features many animals, including Tuzinka, "one of only twelve elephants ever born in captivity" (2.11). Before World War II breaks out, the zoo is, well, a zoo. Zoos were once known as sanctuaries of conservation, and conservation is the main focus of the Warsaw Zoo in the 1930s.
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