User reviews

Director and star of this quirky black comedy Jerzy Stuhr well Illustrates the tedium and blandness of life in a small town with the stark black and white of this film about the peace being disturbed when the chief protagonist adopts a camel from a circus annoying the townsfolk and exacerbating the situation by refusing to let his new friend be exploited for commercial gain. This shows all too well how difficult if not impossible it is to stand out in such a small minded and hypocritical environment. Something I think Jack Nicholson said in `Easy rider` about people being afraid of real freedom springs to mind.

what would you do if you see a camel standing in your garden? don't say it won't happen.. suppose it did you would probably call the police or ask someone for help. well that's not the main characters of "Duze Zwierze" did for sure. instead they wanted to keep it as a pet and as a result a good movie with symbolism at its peak came into scene..

camel is a symbol of something i do not want to mention. because it is the real essence of the movie.but it's symptomatic meaning seems to be that most people are afraid of what they don't know and they don't want to add uncertainty to their lives even if everything is going as boring as it could ever be. therefore it is very logical that the society doesn't want the camel as a pet.

it was a funny movie too. the "horse tax" on the camel made me laugh and at the same time think about with how much unimportant stuff a government can deal with! and while these scenes were shot, camera angles are changing accordingly so you sometimes feel pitiful for Mr. Sawicki and on others you see the government workers so small that you understand they are useless.

it was not a realistic movie for sure but i do not think that realistic P.O.V. should be a criteria in evaluating a movie. was it original? definitely. and finally every aspect of the movie had an important role for the whole film so that means there was a total unity.

when you see this film you will see how a society limits people's behaviors and actually we are not free because of the laws we make ourselves..

The Communists, in all of Eastern Europe, were strongly xenophobic. The script to this film was written a while ago by Krzysztof Kieslowski and it is an almost ideal symbol for the philosophy of many Poles at the time.

In a clever production move the film, which was probably censored and shelved by the former government, was made to resemble films in the 60s, with its black and white cinematography and "aged" look.

The story starts with a man who imports a camel to his neighborhood and receives plenty of excuses, many of them totally bogus, of why he should get rid of it. The result is a tongue in cheek, though ultimately sad film about the fear of "the different one." 8/10

No MPAA rating: contains no objectionable content

I saw "Duze zwierze" (called "Big Animal" in English) at the 2001 Portland International Film Festival. It's a funky, rather nonsensical story of Zygmunt Sawicki (Jerzy Stuhr) finding a camel in his Polish village and adopting the lost animal.

I guess that it would be kind of neat to find something so unusual in a nowheres-ville. Maybe the movie has no major artistic value in the grand scheme of things, but it's still pretty funny. Yes, despite the many hardships that Poland has endured throughout its history, they can still make comedies.

Now that I've watched this Polish movie, I feel that I should try to watch more of them.

I would comment but I couldn't write a better comment then "Beautiful film ... I wish I hadn't seen it ..., 15 June 2004 Author: profhound from Chicago, IL"

It is a beautiful, self critical look at Polish and rather all Human Nature. It shows the power of conformity and social pressure. awesome film.

also a note this film was presented as a laugh out loud funny comedy, and maybe that is what the theaters wanted advertised to get people in the door, and instead I found something better.

Major Credit to the Director for staying true to the writers work, a truly wonderful film

A good movie, but not an outstanding one. I will not tell anything about the plot; once you know more or less what this film is about, you can basically determine what is going to happen and there is nothing in this movie that could surprise you. I'm not saying this is bad, since this movie was not meant to surprise by sudden action twists. What is really remarkable about this movie is the atmosphere of a small town, which is portrayed perfectly, good acting by both main characters and moments when you literally cannot stop laughing. For example, the group of people protesting in front of main character's house... but there are many others.

What I have to say against this movie is that basically it doesn't say anything new about intolerance. I expected something more than some well-known truths and behaviors and few (then again, maybe not so few) admittedly good laughs. If you like Jerzy Stuhr this is definitely worth watching for his acting alone, but if you don't... well, decide for yourself. For me - 7/10.

This is a deceptively simple morality tale that punches well above its weight. It's a short film that nonetheless unfolds at an unhurried pace, building by degrees to a sad and beautiful close. The final scene -- an exquisite coda to this clear-eyed essay on human behaviour -- is worth the price of admission alone. The director has handsomely acquitted his debt to Kieslowski's script. It's a great shame that the movie is not currently available on video/DVD.

10 / 10 on this one. very poetic. the direction was splendid. metaphorically speaking this is a masterpiece about how we value the unexpected when it arrives on our doorstep - and how others can burden us within our bliss. genius.