Movies about the Holocaust or an event surrounding the Holocaust or during the Holocaust is brought about every 3-5 years and almost all events are compelling on screen and told well. You name it: Schindler's List, Life is Beautiful, The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, Shoah, The Pianist, etc. All of these movies places us there during the event with the Jews that are affected and sadly, have a good chance to meet a dark fate. With this movie, I was particularly interested in another story from another angle not just surrounding the Jews affected but also how it affects their business and how they could contribute to helping others. Even though the movie is not as emotionally impactful due its abrupt tonal shifts and Niki Caro, the director, approaches the material safely, it is nevertheless, a mild-mannered film on how this material is handled and it is a solid product.
Dr. Jan Żabiński (Johan Heldenbergh), the director of the Warsaw Zoo, and his wife, Antonina (Jessica Chastain) are keepers of the zoo that has been one of the most successful and largest zoos in 1930s Europe. Even though many people love to arrive to gander at the many species at the zoo, Dr. Lutz Heck (Daniel Brühl), the head of the Berlin Zoo and Hitler's trusted "zoologist", wants to contribute some money and other favors to take care of the animals. But knowing what Germany could do to the animals, Dr. Żabiński rejects Heck's advances.
Later in 1939, Warsaw has been bombarded as Nazis storm Poland. The Zoo is not spared as many of the animals have been killed. Heck implores Antonina that he could save some of their best animals and she concurs, but understanding that what Heck could do, she gets worried. Things get worse for Warsaw as people begin looting the stores and Jews are herded into the Ghetto. Jan and Antonina discuss that even in addition to saving one Jew's life, they would not mind, in addition to saving the animals, they could save more Jews from being slaughtered in the Ghetto.
The movie plays it safe by not focusing mainly on the massacre this time but to the people contributing to saving both the animals and the Jews. In Schindler's List, Steven Spielberg masterfully conveyed both the political and human sides of both Germans and Jews who have participated in the Holocaust. The Ralph Fiennes character, Amon Göeth, is menacing and merciless but has a human side as he starts to love a Jewish servant. That's proof of the human side. Here, we get mostly the human connection to the characters but it is not as moving or as emotional as other Holocaust movies. Plus, we get snippets of politics that affects the Zoo and the Jews and that should have been brought a little more attention into its material.
The performances certainly helped this movie go along as Jessica Chastain, who never disappoints, gives another affective performance as a woman that trembles with fear but brings some heart and some toughness into her character that wants to save them from death. It is Chastain's movie. Johan Heldenbergh also has some nuanced chemistry with Chastain even though he is not in the movie as much as I would like him to be. Daniel Brühl plays a very sneaky officer with conviction and gravitas and he is one of the most underrated actors out there but his character does not provide as much suspense as he just goes and returns to investigate more of what is going on in the Zoo.
I have liked Niki Caro's work in the past with her films like Whale Rider and McFarland, USA (a very good Disney sports movie). But, she injects some of the clichés from the latter movie into this Holocaust tale and makes it a bit less inspiring and less compelling that it should have been. Even, the climax was so conventional that it becomes a bit hokey like it is some sort of copycat version of Schindler's List with a string budget. This movie should have been better and could have stripped the clichés and provide more emotional drama and more backstory and conviction as to what urged Jan and Antonina to protect the Jews and the animals from death.
It is old-fashioned and flawed filmmaking, but Chastain boasts a terrific performance that you cannot bear take your eyes off-screen when she is in it because she is believable in her emotions and struggles to make her life and other's lives much better. It lacks the depth and dark and harrowing angles of the Holocaust and its main material, but the performances and the movie's heart is what saved it. It's a marginal recommendation from me.
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