![]() ![]() The film runs cold at times because the look of it didn’t convince me enough of the horror of those years. Shira Haas is luminous as the wounded girl who experiences Antonia’s compassion during her years in hiding. Jan helps her escape from the ghetto (where he comes and go to retrieve garbage for the pigs – until the garbage gives out as the people are starved.) Once safe in the Żabiński’s basement Antonia’s gifts are truly revealed in patience and kindness. For example, it runs hot when it tells the story of the young teen Urszula (Shira Haas) who is taken by two Nazi soldiers and presumably raped. However, there is an unevenness to the film. I haven’t read the book yet but the film tells a good story as scripted by Angela Workman (I listened to about half the book on a long drive yesterday I think the film does a great job of interpreting the book.) Music played a significant part in the Żabiński’s life and their piano has a large role in keeping their human guests safe during the war.ĭiane Ackerman wrote the Żabiński’s story in The Zookeeper’s Wife (2007) on which the film was based. All of them survived except for two according to the postscript at the end of the film. She is the first of over 300 Jews that the couple will hide almost in plain sight during the war by getting the Germans to agree for them to turn the zoo into a pig farm. Jan and Antonia hide the wife in their basement while her husband goes into the ghetto to help his people. The Żabiński’s have many friends, among them a Jewish couple. ![]() Their first task, headed by now Captain Heck, the Reich’s newly appointed chief zoologist, is to kill off almost all the remaining animals “because they will not survive the winter.” Heck had hidden the fact from Antonia that he wanted the animals for genetic experimentation. The German soldiers move into the zoo and take over spaces that once housed animals. Germany invades Poland months later and the bombings begin, traumatizing the family and animals. It is a sad day when the trucks arrive to take the best of the Warsaw zoo’s animals. Heck makes it a point to declare his non-political status. ![]() Lutz Heck (Daniel Brühl), who heads the Berlin Zoo, visits the Żabiński’s and convinces Antonia to persuade Jan to send him their best animals for safekeeping during the inevitable war that is looming over Europe. It seems like an idyllic existence for the Jan and Antonia who work together as partners to run the zoo. Non-aggressive animals roam the zoo freely and a couple of small cats even sleep in the house with the family. In fact, the film opens with her helping to deliver a baby elephant. She is what we would today call an animal whisperer for her skills with animals in distress. Jan is the head of the zoo but Antonia is not afraid to get her hands dirty. Antonina (Jessica Chastain) Żabiński and her husband Jan (Johan Heldenbergh) and live with their son Ryszard (Tim Radford & Val Maloku) in a villa at the Warsaw Zoo. The film opens not long before Germany invaded Poland on September 1, 1939. This latest film from director Niki Caro (Whalerider) is perhaps one of the most unknown historical dramas that took place during World War II and forms part of the canon of Holocaust films. ![]()
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