The Zookeepers Wife, Movie Review

The Zookeepers Wife, Movie Review

Cassandra Semaan, Staff Writer

The Zookeeper’s Wife is a historical based movie, placed in the early 1900’s during the German forces’ invasion of most of Europe. It depicts the life of a animal loving wife by the name of Antonina Zabinski and her husband Jan Zabinski, followed by their political, social, and economic affairs. They have a son, Rhys, who’s extremely protective and defensive. The movie begins with a social party, in which Jerzyk, their associate and best friend, comes rushing in and brings Antonina to the elephant, who had just given birth and the baby is stillborn. Antonina continues to do CPR on the baby, while the mother elephant tries to pull her off, and Lutz, a German politician attending the party, escorts and coerces the male elephant into a different enclosure. She saves the baby, and is faced with cheers, clapping, and hollers. A few scenes later, Jan attempts to convince Antonina to take Rhys and flee the city while the war comes closer, but she refuses due to her love and commitment towards the animals. Later on, as Antonina is going to open the gate for the zoo visitors to enter, German planes fly overhead, and she rushes back to the house and grabs Rhys just in time for the first bomb to drop. Animals are seen being blown apart, screaming, fire, destroyed enclosures, carcasses, all in all, the scene is extremely hard to watch, and most of the crowd did have to look away. As they flee the zoo, German forces rush in and begin shooting down the loose animals, included a heart-wrenching scene of the father elephant being shot down and collapsing. Lutz later informs them that German soldiers (Nazi’s) will be using their zoo enclosures and space as an armory. Her friends, Magda and Maurycy, are chosen by soldiers and Antonina and Jan decide to hide Magda in their attic until the war is over. Close friends and members are sent to the Ghetto, all Jewish, and Antonina comes up with a plan to use the Ghetto trash to feed pigs raised in the zoo to feed soldiers. Lutz agrees, and also takes her most prized animals to Germany in his zoo to preserve them and their health until the Zabinski’s can rebuild their zoo and the war ends. They continue to bring Jews into the zoo and hide them, creating a signal using the piano to tell them when and when it is not safe to come out, later getting them passports and helping them leave the city. Only 2 of these Jews die, sadly being ratted out by other women at the Ghetto who were not saved. The ghetto is burned down, and Antonina is forced to distract Lutz when he hears one of the hideaways in their basement. His obvious desire of her is extremely noticeable, and Jan gets extremely jealous and yells at Antonina during a very heated moment outside the zoo where Jan sees Lutz washing Antonina’s hands. Jan joins the Revolution and is shot in the neck, and later taken as a prisoner by the Germans. Antonina asks Lutz for his assistance in finding Jan, in which he attempts to rape her, and discovers all of her secrets. As he calls for soldiers, she runs home, tells the soldiers false orders, and ushers all the Jews into a truck, all but herself and her son and Jerzyk, who refuses to leave her. The soldiers arrive and Lutz destroys the door between him and Rhys, chases hi throughout the work room, and finds all of the drawings done by the hideaways. He proceeds to pull a gun on Rhys, have him lock Antonina in a cage, pulls him into the house, and the gun goes off. Antonina collapses in grief, Jerzyk gets pulled away by officers with multiple guns to his head, and the soldiers load up and leave quickly. Rhys later runs out of the house and helps his mother out, assuring her he is fine. They pack their few things, grab the bunny and baby oxen bison mix, and release him into the forest, and continue their trek to meet up with their friends. The movie jumps a year later, in which Antonina and Rhys return to a teary reunion with Jerzky, andtheir close friends stay with them. A man walks into the zoo, slowly at first, and Antonina and Rhys are seen running witht he baby into the man’s arm, who turns out to be Jan returning. It ends with an informational slide, simple and plain, stating the true story about the Zabinki’s, and how they saved over 300 Jewish people during the German Invasion, having only two casulaties, and how they rebuilt their zoo, even though the population was at 6% it’s original. The Warsaw Zoo is still standing today, in Poland.