The Zookeeper

'The Zookeeper' tells a harrowing and moving tale of Ludovic, an ex-communist now zookeeper, who chooses to stay back at war torn Czech Republic in order to take care of the animals. He is regularly visited and harassed by militants (who have already taken Ludovic's only companion, a vet, into their custody) that interrupt his solitude. Suddenly he encounters a young boy and then not much time later, his armed mother shows up to seek refuge. Protecting them would ensure risking his own life. During this ordeal, the three, though at times conflicted, manage to find some solace in taking care of the animals while experiencing constant fear for their own lives and the sadness in losing some of the animals due to the ice cold weather.

Made on a decent budget, the zoo setting is well constructed and the actors' interaction with the animals feels genuine. The director manages to draw the viewer into the story and engage them. While we do care about the characters we also worry about the poor animals who already spent their whole lives in captivity and now during the war there is no escape for them. We are comforted to see the three protagonists do their best to keep them safe but the death scenes are heartbreaking. The screenplay is solid and sticks to the main story. The characters are well developed and the dialogues are good. Ralph Zimen shows clever use of symbolism.

Sam Neill may be an unusual choice but he carries off the title role very well. It couldn't have been an easy role to play but the actor demonstrates his skills effectively. Gina McKee is a very underrated actress and this is one of the few movies that does justice to her immense talent. The actress is sublime. Javor Loznica does a fantastic job by being restrained and explosive when required. Om Puri makes a strong impression in a small role.

I liked the novel concept of the story. How often does one get to see a movie set in a zoo during a civil war? 'The Zookeeper' is a story about courage, survival, love and sacrifice. We see Ludovic transform into this caring person risking his own life to protect Ankiza and her son. We see Ankiza, who was raped and tortured and is now a hardened soldier who still retains the loving and compassionate side of her own self. Then there's young Zioig who forces himself to be an adult and use a gun but who still hasn't lost his innocence and compassion as is evident in his interaction with the animals. Even though one can see the ending coming, it is superbly done. 'The Zookeeper' is one powerful film that deserves multiple viewing.

This follows Ludovic, a former Communist who tries to protect the animals in a zoo in Eastern Europe, in a time of conflict, until the U.N. forces arrive. He tries to ignore the proximity and behavior of an armed group of nationalists, until he is confronted by a young boy. This has three excellent actors, all from different countries, Neill, Ulrich and Puri. Every performance is magnificent. Granted, English is the only language spoken, and accents aren't necessarily spot-on, but that can be forgiven. This is very strong, suspenseful and exciting, and I was caught completely off-guard several places. It captures the chaos and uncertainty of the situation absolutely perfectly. Quite dramatic. The writing is good, and it develops rather smoothly. Pacing is fitting. Cinematography and editing are great. The DVD has two featurettes, a regular making-of, and one that deals with an actual keeper, in Sarajevo, whose interview is translated vocally into American. Both are well-done and worth the time. This has relatively infrequent moderate to harsh cussing, as well as violence and disturbing content. I recommend this to anyone who watches films about the way war affects the civilians. 8/10

THE ZOOKEEPER was released in 2001 and is just now becoming available On Demand and in DVD. It is a harrowing, harshly realistic story both well written - by Matthew Bishop and writer/director Ralph Ziman - atmospherically captured by cinematographer Piotr Kukla, scored with intensity by Nikolaj Egelund - and acted with great skill by Sam Neill and his costars. It is a difficult story to share but one that is so well created that it deserves very wide exposure.

The story takes place in the present somewhere in Eastern Europe. Jonah Ludovic (Sam Neill) is a man living alone whose life as an ex-communist is bordered by his simple existence of writing strangely gentle and eloquent poetry in his journal, and maintaining his meager existence by being the Zookeeper at the municipal zoo. On this morning he hears the beginnings of a civil war: the sounds of gunfire and shelling and glimpses of fire startle him and he runs through the checkpoints to his zoo. At the zoo gates he encounters all of the workers running away to safety, leaving only Ludovic and the zoo's veterinarian (Om Puri) to care for the caged animals. Ludovic elects to stay at the zoo despite warning from the local warlord Yeltsov (Marek Vasut) and Dragov (Ulrich Thomsen), the vile sociopathic captain in charge of searching the for deserters and malcontents. Ludovic gathers his courage and states that the zoo is off limits to everyone, keeping his zoo as a sanctuary for his animals.

But out of the terrifying burning of the village comes a young boy Zioig (Javor Loznica) who seeks shelter. Ludovic at first refuses outsiders but eventually allows Zioig shelter, seeing that the boy loves animals. Together they feed the animals their rations and care for the sick ones. Zioig finds his mother, the newly widowed Anika (Gina McKee) who is disguised as a man to prevent being abused by the troops. There are similarities between Anika and Ludovic and they and the boy bond. Anika discovers Ludovic's journals and sees that this isolated, time bruised man is gentle at heart and as they begin to find each other the war explodes and the zoo is burned and all are left with how to cope with the destructive disaster of war. Can one survive without relinquishing principles and caring for living beings? The audience is left to make that decision.

Sam Neill does a masterful job creating a lonely man whose life has been inalterably changed before the story begins and allows us to see the transformation or softening of a victim of a war torn country. Gina McKee gives her finest performance to date and the acting of Om Puri, Ulrich Thomsen and Javor Loznica is exemplary. This is a very powerful film, one that deserves wide attention - especially now....

Grady Harp

The film is beautiful, moving and sensitive with a subtlety not often displayed these days. Moving performances from Sam Neill, Gina McKee and Javor Loznica. This film has a resonance that stays with you for days. Perhaps it's the images of caged animals terrified by falling bombs, or perhaps it's Sam Neill's haunting performance. He plays a man at war with himself within the confines of a zoo.

The Zookeeper is one of the better-kept secrets of Sam Neill's career. After emerging from the commercial experience of Jurassic Park 3, the actor started work on something of completely different caliber, a moving drama set amidst the tumultuous background of an east European civil war. That film's director, Ralph Ziman, is that rarity in mainstream cinema: a creator of some political consciousness. It's a characteristic he showed in his first film Hearts And Mind (1996) set in Praetoria, which focused on a death squad assassin aiming to infiltrate the National African Congress. According to those who have seen it, the result was memorable but it remains obstinately unavailable on DVD, and so almost completely unknown to most viewers. After working on a pop video collection, presumably to pay the rent between serious assignments, Ziman took a number of years to develop what is by all accounts something of a pet project for him, The Zookeeper. It's a film which communicates a similar feeling of political unease, again focusing on the various costs, private and public, of social upheaval and ideological conflict.

Neill was a deliberate casting choice for the role of Ludovic, the disillusioned party member now animal keeper in some unnamed, conflict-ridden east European city, a character estranged from his former beliefs, his daughter (now living in Paris and sending recriminatory letters) and, ultimately, himself. In Ziman's co-written script, Ludovic's zoo is under direct threat from street fighting partisans while the keeper determines to keep it a 'sanctuary' from the constant shelling outside. Underlying all are the realities of the Bosnian conflict, the spectre of ethnic cleansing hovering on the zoo's doorstep. During the first part of the film, as the underpaid and frightened zoo staff disappear off, Ludovic gradually finds himself looking after the entire establishment with just the vet (Indian actor Om Puri) helping with animal care. Soon however local warlord Yeltsov (Marek Vasut, here frighteningly malevolent, seen more recently in The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen and Van Helsing) enters the compound, and the keeper is left to fend with his animals alone.

There's an obvious metaphor to proceedings as Ludovic watches over the creatures in his own institution while outside a different, and far more dangerous, set of beasts prowl the streets. Yeltsov's brigands even call themselves 'The Young Lions' and adopt a zoo cub as a mascot - a moment which, as they hold it up for a group photograph, reminds one of the genocidal Nazi commander and his lemur in Come And See. Haunted by his past and unspecified crimes he committed while in a position of power, the question is whether Ludovic stays put either through a need to escape from the war outside and his own conscience, or through a genuine need to look after the animals. The situation is complicated by the arrival of the young widow Ankica (Gina McKee) and her son, both looking for respite and refuge after their personal experience of war atrocities. Ankica discover a more sensitive and regretful Ludovic when she comes across his private journals - but then the war intrudes again into their humanistic enclave.

The Zookeeper can be compared to No Man's Land, awarded the best foreign language film Oscar in the same year. Both cover the same contemporary events, although Ziman's film is the more intimate of the two, less satirical. In both, blue helmeted UN peacekeepers are in evidence although in The Zookeeper they are barely noticeable, standing impotent in the background. And whereas No Man's Land focuses more on the predicament of soldiery trapped in trenches, the present film finds its heart within the civilian Ludovic. He who, whilst in a uniform of his own (that of an animal keeper, in which he still takes pathetic pride), answers to no misguided loyalties on any side.

When we first see Ludovic he is roused from his bed, awoken by a dawn raid in the street outside - a moment that momentarily recalls the anxieties of The Pianist (2002). As he proceeds to and from his work, beset in turn by self doubts, moral isolationism and the demands of checkpoint guards, Neill gives an excellent browbeaten performance, his doomed gravitas conveying exactly the increasingly shell-shocked, anguished zoo employee, too many lives weighing in his grasp. Chief among the other pleasures of the film are the superb set, apparently constructed on an abandoned military base, but entirely convincing as a 'found' location. And as a corollary to Ludovic's own moral predicament, the rundown buildings containing despairing and bewildered wildlife are entirely apposite. The Zookeeper's supporting cast are also uniformly excellent.

Given the plight of the animals it would be too easy for the film to sentimentalise events and Ziman to his credit largely avoids this pitfall. The initial cremation of the big cat, the later burning of the Monkey House and the deaths in the wolf pen are all handled with restraint and during these events, Ludovic mostly internalises his grief and suffering. In fact this is the film's weakness; the zoo keeper's hidden journals and his grudging feelings towards the young family all indicate a sensitive man - especially in comparison with the callous Yeltsov - all but crushed by circumstance but still, grimly, hanging on. His story would have been helped and enriched by an opening-out towards the end in words as well as action, although the mute significance of holding hands - a motion signifying human connectiveness, which appears at key moments during the film - has its own articulate power.

While no masterpiece, The Zookeeper is well worth tracking down and it is puzzling why it has had such limited exposure on DVD. As far as I can discover it only appears on a region four disc.