The Zookeeper's Wife Essay

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Film Essay There is a Holocaust theme in The Zookeeper's wife, which was directed by Niki Caro and written by Angela Workman. Antonina Zabinski (Jessica Chastain), Jan Zabinski's (Johan Heldenbergh), the zookeeper’s, wife helps care for their zoo and her family. The zoo brings the whole family and town together, and everyone is happy while being entertained by the animals. Shortly after, they are to find out that their world is going to be turned upside-down when the German military storm into their cozy lives and Polish town. Antonina's faith to her husband will also get tried by the German leader of the group, Lutz Heck (Daniel Brühl), which leads herself to be put in some rather risqué situations. She and her family obligate themselves to hide their Jewish friends and …show more content…

Buildings were being bombed and lit on fire, Jews were forced to be removed from their homes, they were getting shot at and killed for unfair reasons, and it was even shown that a young girl was raped in an alley. All of this leads to the view of the Holocaust. Sheila O'Malley, a film critic from Rogerebert, supports this by stating, "There are also some fictionalizations that come straight out of the familiar and clichéd Nazi-movie playbook." Although it gives a general idea, the dismal actions displayed in the film were downplayed immensely, considering the actual traumas and damages of the Holocaust. Stephen Holden, a critic from New York Times, agrees when he mentions the movie was calm in his review (1). Fortunately, the zookeeper family comes together to help their peers because to them the Jews were people that were not to be treated like they were different from anyone else. "I was raised with these people. Gentile, Jewish. It didn't matter to my family. It never mattered to me," says Jan (The Zookeeper's Wife). They went on to save nearly three hundred lives and made a huge difference in their

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