Movie: The Zookeeper's Wife

The Zookeeper’s Wife:  based upon Diane Ackerman’s superb non-fiction book bearing the same title.  I thoroughly enjoyed the book and the film is true to the tale told in the book.  The film opens in Warsaw in 1939.  It starts shortly before Nazi Germany’s invasion of the city.  The Zookeeper is Dr. Jan Zabinski (Johan Heldenbergh) and his wife is Antonina (Jessica Chastain).  In an otherwise excellent performance, the accent adopted by Chastain is an odd Polish/Russian blend.  Although you become accustomed to her accent, it remains a slight distraction.  The opening scenes present an overly idealistic relationship between Antonina and the Zoo’s animals, but they serve to set the stage for the Zabinskis’ story after Warsaw is overrun by the Nazis.  During the initial invasion, the Zoo is heavily bombed and many of the animals are lost.  We are introduced to Hitler’s zoologist, Dr. Lutz Heck  (Daniel Bruhl), initially at a pre-invasion cocktail party.   Dr. Heck is central to the storyline. Unwittingly, he becomes the key in the Zabinskis’ scheme to rescue Jews from the Warsaw Ghetto:  Dr. Heck’s approval is needed to keep the Zoo operating.  To maintain a viable escape route, the Zabinskis offer Dr. Heck the Zoo’s facilities to use as a hog farm to provide meat for the Nazi soldiers; to feed the hogs, garbage from the Warsaw Ghetto is needed.  When the waste is transported from the Ghetto to the Zoo, escaping Jews are hidden in the garbage.   Later, the Zookeeper obtains additional access to the Ghetto resulting in additional Jews leaving the Ghetto.   The film does an excellent job of showing how these two schemes operated and Antonina’s involvement in the process.   A total of 300 Jews were able to leave the Ghetto and only 2 were subsequently found by the Nazis.  Dr. Zabinski also becomes very involved in the fight against the Nazis but his story is not the focal point.  The focus of this 126 minute film is the Zookeeper’s wife, Antonina.  The screenplay is written by Angela Workman and the director is Niki Caro.  They keep the film’s focus on showing how two individuals worked to save lives and use Hitler’s zoologist to illustrate the idiocy and sickness of Nazi ideology.  I think most of you are fully aware of the Holocaust and do not need further film education on the horrors inflicted by Hitler.  I make this comment because after writing the first draft of this commentary, I read a number of reviews which attacked the film for being too light on depicting what was occurring outside the gates of the Zoo.  I don’t think this film is light on the Holocaust nor do I think it reflects a particularly feminist perspective of the Holocaust.   Rather, the film and the book depict the righteous acts of two individuals by keeping the focus on these individuals, particularly the wife.  The book is superb and this film is worth seeing.   Jan and Antonina were amazing people and this film gives them the just praise they deserve.