SYNOPSIS
Following the seasons, a film about life, work, animals and visitors at Zoo Zurich, an institution that is one of the leading zoological gardens in Europe.
REVIEW
The Invisible Zoo is a documentary exploring the unseen side of Zurich Zoo, one of the world's premier zoological gardens. Romuald Karmakar, one of contemporary German cinema's most daring and politically controversial filmmakers, turns his lens to this subject after tackling diverse topics from Balkan mercenaries to serial killers, Heinrich Himmler's speeches, 9/11 hijackers, and Berlin's club scene. The film opens with a striking 10-minute long take of what appears to be a rainforest. As rain intensifies and thunder mingles with birdsong, we realize we're observing a man-made zoo environment, not a jungle. Karmakar's style, characteristically dry and devoid of rhetorical flourish, challenges viewers with its sustained gaze. He details zoo management activities but primarily focuses on the practical tasks maintaining this vast, complex space. Throughout the day, we observe animals in artificial habitats, their feeding routines, expressionless faces, daily lives, and deaths. Some scenes are particularly difficult to watch, such as a zebra's shooting and beheading or a lion's feeding. Through these extended sequences, Karmakar probes the human-animal relationship and its institutional manifestations, revealing the underlying violence necessary to maintain the zoo's apparent tranquility.
DIRECTOR'S NOTE
Still half asleep, I read how nowadays 700 species of monkeys can be identified, 50 years ago there were only 250. I think of the 500 animals described by Aristotle, the founder of zoology, over 2000 years ago. I think of his teacher's allegory of the cave, the first description of a cinematic experience in our culture. Whether the cinematic realization of the allegory would be easier than the scene with the walking leaf, I still wanted to know.
