The turnover is rapid at first, as the Jewish Help, in cellars and disused cages beneath the Zabinskis' villa on
Ghetto in vats of garbage and sheltering them, with Antonina's But as one good deed leads to another andĪnother, Jan is soon aiding the Resistance by smuggling Jews out of the Suggests that they shelter one Jewish friend indefinitely, Jan isĭubious: discovery means a death sentence for all concerned, probably Has a deep connection, than she is with strangers. The choice to act is all the more difficultīecause she is clearly more at ease with her zoo animals, with whom she Mother in a subjugated and occupied country who, with her husband,ĭecides to risk death daily-for years-to get innocent people out of Unlike women in other films, Antonina Zabinska is a civilian Zookeeper's Wife does succeed in bringing something new andĭifferent. Holocaust" and "movies about women in wartime," The To the occasionally overlapping genres of "movies about the Zabinskis' story remains materially true to its source. Liberties and a putative post-feminist subtext, the broad outline of the He's completely emotionally open." But in spite of dramatic Likewise Caro has enthused to an interviewer that BelgianĪctor Johan Heldenbergh was cast as Jan Zabinski because,Ĭorrespondingly, "He's so masculine. The film's focus on Antonina, however, it's hard to tell what It "speaks about war in a very feminine fashion." Other than Straight from her nurturing femininity (see the posters) the film, saysĭirector Caro, is "a very feminine look at the Holocaust," and Woman author (Diane Ackerman) who's drawn on the writings of aĪntonina is presented as a strong character whose strength comes Woman screenwriter (Angela Workman) from a non-fiction account by a Zookeeper's Wife, moreover, is surely the first motion pictureĪbout war or the Holocaust made by a woman director (Niki Caro) and a Poland, and the natural history of vertebrates and bugs. The movie) wobbles between the Zabinskis themselves, the Holocaust in Wife is a fictionalized take on Ackerman's account, which (unlike
Dolittle and the whorish consolations of Life is Beautiful.īut thankfully that movie never quite happens. We, however, are braced by now for a light,ĭisney-style look at the evilest aspect of the cruelest war of theīloodiest century: a cross, perhaps, between the animal adventures ofĭr. Of a newborn elephant, while its anguished dam looms menacingly over Interrupted as Antonina rushes to the elephant compound to save the life Rude mutterings from another guest about German designs on Poland is Zabinskis and a rescuer of orphaned cubs. (Daniel Bruhl), director of the Berlin Zoo, an animal lover like the That evening at a reception we meet the personable Dr. Hand-feed an apple to a full-grown hippo (not recommended). Them "darling" and "my loves," and pausing to Worshipfully behind Antonina (Chastain) as she bikes about the Zoo,īidding a chirpy good morning to each of her animal friends, calling Perfect safety with lion cubs in his bed and a baby camel trots Peaceable kingdom that the Zabinskis' young son, Ryszard, sleeps in Summer of 1914 beloved of English sentimentalists. Idyllic summer day in 1939-reminiscent of the "golden" pre-war In accord with the posters, The Zookeper's Wife opens on an Warsaw Ghetto-a neighborhood transmuted into a concentration camp for Operators of the Warsaw Zoo and unexpected saviors of Jews from the Yet the film is about a remarkable, real-lifeĬase of defiance of the Nazis in Poland, its script loosely drawn fromĭiane Ackerman's 2007 bestseller about Jan and Antonina Zabinski, Which show a solicitous Jessica Chastain cuddling a lion cub in herĪrms, while distant, nearly invisible airplanes wing their way toward Which brings us to The Zookeper's Wife (2017), posters for Holo-kitsch are sometimes called, derisively, "Holocaust Almost by definition, Holo-kitsch is patronizing,įalse to history, and, sadly, false to human nature. Situations, comedy, or any other softening of the Final Solution for Identify: happy endings, historical distortions, gratuitous sex, stockĬharacters, thrilling adventures, heart-warming characters and Polish director Agnieszka Holland, who's directed twoĬritically acclaimed Holocaust films-Europa, Europa (1990) and Inĭarkness (2011)-has expressed equal disapproval. Interpreted in striking form his father's recollections ofĪuschwitz. Hitler's Final Solution as just one more setting for sentiment orĪdventure is cartoonist Art Spiegelman, whose Pulitzer-winning Maus "Holo-kitsch." One prominent critic of films that exploit Writing about the Holocaust have given rise to the term OVER THE PAST TWENTY YEARS, mawkishness and melodrama injected into Air Force Academy, Department of English 19 Nov.
MLA style: "THE ZOOKEEPER'S WIFE." The Free Library.