The Zookeeper S Wife

Jessica Chastain Goes Dr. Dolittle In Wwii

... the dialogue run to the blandest of bromides. It's fortunate that the stellar director Niki Caro (Whale Rider) rarely lets the action go slack, using striking visuals that express so much more than the clunky verbiage. And in Jessica Chastain, Caro finds an actress ready to use everything she's got to bring the title role to life. Jessica Chastain: The Hippie Who Took Out Bin Laden. Up close with the star of 'Zero Dark Thirty'. Though her Polish accent owes too much to Meryl Streep's Eastern European lilt from Sophie's Choice, Chastain is radiant as Antonina Zabinska, the wife of a zoopkeeper named Jan (Johan Heldenbergh). In the early scenes, before the hostilities, Caro's camera follows Antonia's morning ritual of riding her bicycle around the lovely art-nouveau zoo, feeding the animals and talking to them like a female Dr. Dolittle. Later, we watch her give CPR to a choking baby elephant with its mother ...

The Zookeeper's Wife

... "The Zookeeper's Wife.". (Photo: Anne Marie Fox/Focus Features). CONNECT TWEET LINKEDIN COMMENTEMAILMORE. “THE BLACKCOAT’S DAUGHTER”:  Two girls battle a mysterious evil force when they’re left behind at boarding school over winter break. With Emma Roberts, Kiernan Shipka and Lucy Boynton. Rated R for bloody violence and language. “THE BOSS BABY”: Animated comedy about a suit-wearing, briefcase-carrying baby who teams with his 7-year-old brother to stop a corporate exec’s plot to destabilize the balance of love in the world. With the voices of Alec Baldwin, Steve Buscemi, Jimmy Kimmel, Lisa Kudrow and Tobey Maguire. Rated PG for mild rude humor. Screenings Thursday. “GHOST IN THE SHELL”: Scarlett Johansson stars as a human who is cyber-enhanced to fight the world’s most dangerous criminals after she’s saved from a terrible crash. Rated PG-13 for sci-fi violence, suggestive content and disturbing images. Screenings ...

Seattle Jewish Film Festival To Feature ‘zookeeper’s Wife,’ Other Soul-reaching Fare

... but to introduce people to nuanced thinking about the Jewish experience.”. Most Read Stories. 3-course dinners for $32 starting April 2. This year’s lineup features films from the Netherlands (offbeat tale of self-discovery “Moos”) and France (“The Origin of Violence,” a novel take on hidden histories of the Holocaust, Lavitt says) alongside selections from Israel and the United States. Many of the films deal with weighty issues, from the struggles of refugees in Israel (documentary “Freedom Runners”) to an adaptation of a true story of Polish resistance in World War II (“The Zookeeper’s Wife,” starring Jessica Chastain). But the festival’s tonal scope is broader than that. “People have the perception a lot of the time that a Jewish film festival is dark or dour or focuses on really nitty-gritty conflicts and the Holocaust,” Lavitt said. “We open up with ...

The Zookeeper’s Wife

... but has yet to see any of her work translated into a genuinely thrilling movie. There’s no nice way to put it in this case, but “The Zookeeper’s Wife” has the unfortunate failing of rendering its human drama less interesting than what happens to the animals — and for a subject as damaging to our species as the Holocaust, that no small shortcoming. Film Review: 'The Zookeeper's Wife'. Reviewed at Wilshire Screening Room, Los Angeles, Jan. 17, 2017. MPAA Rating: PG-13. Running time: 125 MIN. A Focus Features release and presentation of a Scion Films, Electric City Entertainment, Tollin Prods., Rowe Miller Prods. production. Producers: Jeff Abberley, Jamie Patricof, Diane Miller Levin, Kim Zubick. Executive producers: Marc Butan, Robbie Rowe Tollin, Mike Tollin, Jessica Chastain, Kevan Van Thompson, Mickey Liddell, Pete Shilaimon, Jennifer Monroe. Director: Niki Caro. Screenplay: Angela Workman, based on the book by Diane Ackerman. Camera (color, widescreen): Andrij ...

Jessica Chastain Is ‘the Zookeeper’s Wife’; ‘all This Panic’ Chronicles N.y. Teens

... Chastain for the lead. The actress “said yes immediately,” according to the filmmaker. “Shooting in Warsaw was out of the question, as 90% of the city had been destroyed in the war,” explained Caro. “Prague was a great alternative, in that we could recreate 1930 s Warsaw, a thriving, cosmopolitan city known as ‘the Paris of the North.’ The biggest production challenge was how we were going to express a Belle Epoch zoo. Although we did explore it, there was no way we could shoot in a real zoo. From a production design perspective, no modern zoo was ever going to be period accurate, let alone be able to withstand the stages of destruction required to express the war years.”. Instead, the production set out to find a place to create their own zoo. Production Designer Suzie Davies found a neglected exhibition park near the center of the ...

10 Things ‘the Zookeeper’s Wife’ Teaches Us About Wwii History Guest Blog

... and blond hair were kidnapped from their parents and sent to Germany in order to be raised as Germans. Historian Norman Davies describes Nazi terror as “much fiercer and more protracted in Poland than anywhere in Europe.” Over two million Polish civilians died as a result of Nazi German policies and oppression during World War II. 9. What battle did Jan fight in during the movie. Jan Zabinski served in the Polish underground Home Army. This formation, loyal to the Polish Government in exile in London, was composed of close to a half million soldiers. It is considered to be one of if not the largest underground organization in occupied Europe during World War II. On August 1, 1944 the Home Army launched the Warsaw Uprising, the largest underground operation in all of World War II. With the Soviets approaching Warsaw, the Poles believed they could liberate the Polish capital themselves. This would have been not only a military victory, but more importantly a political ones, as ...

Animals, Nazis & A Superb Jessica Chastain Make For Memorable Wwii Story

... Based on Diane Ackerman’s gut-wrenching and powerful book, The Zookeeper’s Wife stars Jessica Chastain in another superb performance as Antonina Zabinski. With her husband Jan (Johan Heldenbergh) they ran the Warsaw Zoo, and during the Nazi invasion turned it into a haven to hide hundreds of Jews during the course of the war. Essentially they took the place of caged animals in escaping the wrath of the Germans, all thanks to the heroic efforts of the Zabinskis but particularly Antonina, who used all her wiles to save these people in dire circumstances. The effort gets complicated when Nazi zoologist Lutz Heck (Daniel Bruhl) arrives with the offer of sending some of the most prized animals to Germany, where they would take part in a breeding program to produce superior species. The relationship between the two becomes tense as he falls for her, and engages sexually while she complies in order to ...

World War Ii From Inside Warsaw Zoo

... onto the screen, “Warsaw, 1939,” and a feeling of dread settles in. It is a difficult thing to make an audience feel the awfulness and terror of World War II as if it were something new. Though the war was and remains the greatest calamity ever to befall the planet, it has been the subject of too many movies, good and bad. Yet “The Zookeeper’s Wife” grabs us from its first seconds. Here is life, at its most splendid and miraculous. And here, on the other side, are the enemies of life. This sense of the situation is emphasized in one of the first scenes, when Jessica Chastain , as the title character, hurries away from a fancy reception and assists in the birth of an elephant. Apparently, there’s some sort of problem. The mother elephant needs help, and the father elephant is hovering and getting aggressive. But the zookeeper’s wife calms the ...