The Zookeeper's Wife
21/04/17 Filed in: Cinema
Set in Poland just before Germany's invasion in 1939, we are introduced to Jan and Antonina Żabiński, who run the Warsaw Zoo. Everything is sweetness and light as Antonina is seen cycling around the zoo, followed by a young camel, while stopping off to feed various animals. But this idyll is soon to be shattered and it isn't long before we see German bombs falling on the zoo. Many animals are killed and those that aren't are acquired by Lutz Heck of the Berlin Zoo. Lutz and the Żabińskis were acquainted before the war, and he convinces Antonina that taking their prize animals to Berlin was their only chance of survival. Lutz's true character becomes more apparent when he later returns as a German officer and supervises the destruction of most of the remaining animals. You will have gathered by now that this is probably not a film for the children.
With the animals mostly gone Jan and Antonina turn their attention to the plight of the Jewish people, who have been rounded up by the Nazis into a ghetto. At great risk they first shelter a close friend, but soon develop a strategy to help many others. Converting the zoo into a pig farm gives them the opportunity to collect food scraps from the ghetto, and among the pile of scraps Jan brings out children. The venture becomes even more daring when, helped by an official in the ghetto, Jan obtains papers enabling him to take workers out through the gates. In this way hundreds are helped. To facilitate their ultimate escape women have their hair dyed blond to pass as Aryan.
Throughout, Antonina entertains Lutz to keep him supportive, this ultimately becoming a problem after she feigns attraction to him in an attempt to distract him from a sound made by the people hiding in the house. In turn Jan becomes jealous, but she tries to convince him that there is nothing to worry about. They renew their commitment to each other and Antonina becomes pregnant, giving birth to a daughter, Teresa.
Jan joins the resistance as part of the Warsaw uprising but is wounded and assumed to have been taken captive. Meanwhile, Antonina continues the dangerous cat and mouse operation at the zoo, although in the end Lutz becomes suspicious. But by this time the Soviet troops are advancing on Warsaw and the Germans are evacuating.
The film is based on a non-fiction book of the same name and also on the actual diaries of Antonina Żabińska. Jessica Chastain plays Antonina, her faux Polish accent being a bit too affected for my taste, but that aside she carries the role well. Although there have been many films dealing with the treatment of the Jewish people during the war, this one arguably provides a slightly different angle in showing how they were herded into the ghetto before ultimately being transported to the camps. The scene where they are boarding the train, their suitcases unceremoniously discarded, the children's eyes hopeful as they are lifted into the carriages, is particularly upsetting.
Jan joins the resistance as part of the Warsaw uprising but is wounded and assumed to have been taken captive. Meanwhile, Antonina continues the dangerous cat and mouse operation at the zoo, although in the end Lutz becomes suspicious. But by this time the Soviet troops are advancing on Warsaw and the Germans are evacuating.
The film is based on a non-fiction book of the same name and also on the actual diaries of Antonina Żabińska. Jessica Chastain plays Antonina, her faux Polish accent being a bit too affected for my taste, but that aside she carries the role well. Although there have been many films dealing with the treatment of the Jewish people during the war, this one arguably provides a slightly different angle in showing how they were herded into the ghetto before ultimately being transported to the camps. The scene where they are boarding the train, their suitcases unceremoniously discarded, the children's eyes hopeful as they are lifted into the carriages, is particularly upsetting.