In The Zookeeper’s Wife , Diane Ackerman’s bestselling book of the same name comes alive on the big screen. The literary effort chronicles the lives of zookeepers Jan and Antonina Żabiński who rescued 300 Jews from the ghettos in Poland during World War II.
The cinematic effort, directed by Niki Caro ( Whale Rider , 2002) begins at the start of World War II. Antonina (Jessica Chastain) is lovingly gazing at her son sleeping beside lion cubs. In the days to come, the Żabińskis continue their operations at the Warsaw Zoo while the horrors of World War II get worse. The air raids kill several of the zoo’s animals, Jews are ghettoised and the Nazis overtake the Żabińskis’ property. Some of the zoo’s inhabitants are saved by moving them to Lutz Heck’s (Daniel Brühl) zoo in Berlin but the rest have to be “liquidated” for the sake of the war. When the time comes to remove all Jews from Poland, Jan and Antonina, first offer their friend Magda shelter, but start saving more people by hiding them in the animal cages below the house. An elaborate system of smuggling, sheltering and rehoming Jews is established right under the eyes of the Nazis. Some of them are disguised as Aryans with blonde hair; while others are transported in other ingenious ways.
The Zookeeper’s Wife
- Director: Niki Caro
- Starring: Jessica Chastain, Johan Heldenbergh, Michael McElhatton and Daniel Brühl.
- Run time: 126 minutes
Caro has stayed loyal to Ackerman’s book with little deviation. She recreates the horror of living through war and the terrible state of what the ghettos must have been like. That we will be moved by the Holocaust is evident, but Caro does little else. In a surprising albeit sad turn of events, the audience feels more empathy for the suffering of the animals than human beings. The film’s most heartbreaking scene is watching the Nazis shoot the remaining zoo animals citing humanitarian reasons. It’s not that the director has merely skimmed the surface and produced a superficial effort. She’s instead forgone a build-up in lieu of a straight-edged depiction of historical events, undoubtedly aimed at yanking those heartstrings.
For instance, the Jews in the Żabiński house escape with little or no consequence. There’s scant evidence of their anxiety living in hiding. It’s as if the film is a sequence of coincidences, happy or otherwise. Caro tells us a tale of heroes, without telling us anything about them other than their heroic deeds.
With its 126-minute run time, The Zookeeper’s Wife is long, sometimes unnecessarily so. A Holocaust film can be more than a tear-jerker, but this one doesn’t even try to do anything else.
