Un zoo la nuit

It has its shocking elements, but Un Zoo La Nuit is, in the end, a touching film about a son trying to re-establish his relationship with his dying father. The zoo surreal zoo scene is particularily touching, in which the father and son, in an attempt to relive their past by going hunting, shoot an elephant with a sleeping dart gun and put him to sleep. Overall, a well-executed and thoughtful movie.

Wow , if Michael Mann was from Montreal , it would done THIS ! Really great movie , dark neonism.

...Even in death. This movie is more than anything anyone can tell you about it. It is not a cop-action movie, not a sociological study, nor an emotional drama. What you will find yourself watching is what you want to really see. But what mostly comes through, however the director gets there, is the love lost between a father and a son. The father having never questioned his love for his son, the son never having thought about his love for his father. They come together after events in the son's life that could be any other hardship a man goes through in his life. This time it's prison.

So the premice is not that original... So the treatment is a bit artsy. But the emotions that flare up between the two men are stronger than the story line, and the acting is what makes it all seem so close to home. The fear of rejection that parents feel when they see their child become an adult, and the feelings of being controlled by their parents, that adults still feel because they haven't grown up yet.

A wonderful movie, powerful, simple in it's message but complex in it's meaning. I would pay anytime to watch it again!

The principal attraction of this movie, a family and police drama set in contemporary Montréal, was the great play by Gilles Maheu, which has since then become a sucessful theatre director in Québec and around the world. Seeing him ride a motorcycle and fighting against gangsters was very interesting!

People shouldn't expect to see a similiar movie from "Léolo" of the same director; this one proves to be way less artistically refined.

In my opinions of course...

This film is to be appreciated by those with a bit of insight (or at least a desire to experience different things), an open mind, and sick of same old predictable script hollywood cr*p. If hollywood is your basis for comparison, Un Zoo la Nuit will either enrich your understanding of what movies should be, or show you that you should stick to with hollywood flicks. Not that hollywood doesn't put out good movies. It's just finding that one in a few hundred movies that winds up being a gem.

Un Zoo la Nuit is a depiction of deceit, drugs, and dysfunctional human relationships. The father/son relationship is classic, sad. Some scenes are extremely memorable (of course the prison rape scene isn't, but things like that do happen in that real world out there). This movie is not brain dead, it might make you think about your situation and of those around you... The son's emotions of love and compassion come through clearly with his father and you are forced to feel for that relationship. The relationship takes a surrealistic twist when it becomes clear no time is left to catch up. However, the son remains a crook and a murderer.

There are no good guys in this movie. Not the stuff of hollywood.

What hollywood did to the original versions of Nikita and The Vanishing, just as a couple of examples, should be enough to turn anyone off. When Pacino kills Deniro at the end of Heat, it's just plain wrong!!! :)

If you want something that is even more outside the box than Un Zoo la Nuit, check out the recent Maelstom with Croze. Keep an open mind with the fish... But again, a realistic and honest view at real humans.