The Zookeeper

"One man had the courage to do what was right..."

2001 1h 48m EN

👍

6.6

SOLID

⭐

6.8

IMDB

★6.6TMDB · 17★6.8IMDB · 4,363

DramaWar

Synopsis

Spoiler shield

Jonah Ludovic is a custodian at a small municipal zoo. After a night of heavy shelling Ludovic arrives at his job to find the staff abandoning the zoo. He joins a skeleton crew that includes an elderly guard and a veterinarian. Their purpose: to keep the animals alive until help arrives from an international zoological mission.

“One man had the courage to do what was right...”

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Cast

Sam Neill
Ludovic
Gina McKee
Ankica
Ulrich Thomsen
Dragov
Om Puri
The Vet
Marek Vašut
Yeltsov
Javor Loznica
Zioig
Serdjan Simeonović
Slavko
Arnošt Proschek
Dusan

Credits

Behind the camera

Director: Ralph Ziman
Writers: Matthew Bishop, Marketa Korinkova, Matthew Bishop
Languages: English
Countries: Czech Republic

Want more? Switch to Cinephile mode in the header for DP, composer, budget, box office, production companies, keywords, and release history.

Did you know?

Fun facts 🍿

1 / 7

ERA

Did you know

25 years old — old enough to be someone's favourite childhood film.

MoodPlayr · trivia#01

2 / 7

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Directed by Ralph Ziman, shot by Piotr Kukla. Note their partnership — DPs and directors often return to each other across a career.

MoodPlayr · trivia#02

3 / 7

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Editor Christopher Holmes shaped the rhythm. On an edit-heavy film, the editor does more to control your pulse than the director.

MoodPlayr · trivia#03

4 / 7

CAST

Did you know

Sam Neill and Gina McKee and Ulrich Thomsen carry the top of the cast.

MoodPlayr · trivia#04

5 / 7

FACT

Did you know

Marketing tagline: "One man had the courage to do what was right...".

MoodPlayr · trivia#05

6 / 7

WILD

Did you know

IMDB entry: tt0231001 — still the authoritative cross-reference for credits and trivia.

MoodPlayr · trivia#06

7 / 7

WILD

Did you know

Only 17 TMDB ratings — you're getting ahead of the curve on this one.

MoodPlayr · trivia#07

Cinephile deep dive

The take

Ralph Ziman directs. Piotr Kukla behind the camera. Christopher Holmes cuts. Produced in Czech Republic. Dialogue in English.

Trivia

Things worth knowing

125 years old — old enough to be someone's favourite childhood film.
2Directed by Ralph Ziman, shot by Piotr Kukla. Note their partnership — DPs and directors often return to each other across a career.
3Editor Christopher Holmes shaped the rhythm. On an edit-heavy film, the editor does more to control your pulse than the director.
4Sam Neill and Gina McKee and Ulrich Thomsen carry the top of the cast.
5Marketing tagline: "One man had the courage to do what was right...".
6IMDB entry: tt0231001 — still the authoritative cross-reference for credits and trivia.
7Only 17 TMDB ratings — you're getting ahead of the curve on this one.

The technical file

Cinematography: Piotr Kukla
Editing: Christopher Holmes
Production design: Martin Malý
Makeup / hair: Jiří Farkaš
VFX supervisor: Ivo Marak
Sound: Stig Sparre-Ulrich
Stunt coordinator: Ladislav Lahoda
Runtime: 108 min · 1h 48m
Aspect ratio (typical): 1.37:1 (Academy)
Status: Released
Budget: $6,000,000
Original language: EN
IMDB: The Zookeeper (2001)
IMDB rating: 6.8/10 · 4,363 votes
MPAA: Not Rated

Awards

3 wins

Also by

Ralph Ziman

Stills · wallpapers

Selected frames

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Wallpaper

Trailers & featurettes

Watch the pieces

Community reviews

What people are saying

kosspgd2024-01-17
ZOOKEEPER, THE THE ZOOKEEPER , Denmark/UK/Czech Rep./Netherlands, 2001, MPAA Rating : N/A THE ZOOKEEPER is an unjustly overlooked film about bitter regret and unexpected redemption told in the starkest possible terms. Released in 2001, it features a towering performance by Sam Neill in the title role as Ludovic, former Communist party true believer now tending to the municipal zoo in an unnamed war-torn eastern European country suffering the anarchy following the fall of the Berlin Wall and the dissolution of the former Yugoslavia. The self-imposed solitude of his life becomes more profound as city is evacuated and he is left alone with the animals and the eccentric vet (Om Puri) of unfortunate ethnicity. As the film begins, a tiger has died from the shock of hearing bombs drop, and Ludovic has been reduced to tears and anger by a letter from his daughter in Paris. When the call to evacuate is made, he volunteers to stay behind to feed the animals and, if necessary, make the decisions about which ones will be fed to the others when the supplies run out. As with much else, it’s a metaphor for what is happening around him, as factions prey upon one another in the name of taking care of the terrified survivors. That element is brought home in the character of Dragov (Ulrich Thomsen), the commander of a roving band of soldiers whose subjugates Ludovic with a broad smile and the sunny assurance that he is fighting unnamed forces on his behalf. Ludovic drinks, smiles, rages, and accepts what is happening with indifference while writing in his diary words of exquisite longing and love. The audience discovers this, along with the last remnants of Ludovic’s humanity when he takes in Zioig (Javor Loznica), a child who barely survived the murder of his father and the other men in his village, and Zioig’s mother, Ankica (Gina McKee) who survived the organized rapes and beatings that the women suffered. Emotionally, both are even more lost than Ludovic, setting up a poignant situation that places Ludovic squarely back into the midst of his fellow creatures. Mckee and Loznica are heartbreakingly indelible, she with a haunted desperation, Loznica with a coldness that belies his tender years. Their emotional shutdown cuts like a knife. Neill is just as subtle, though with a role that allows him to rage. In every choice he makes, there is a deliberate sense of restraint, of not allowing his character to give full reign to the depth of emotion. The wariness of fear of what allowing those feelings, tender or angry, full sway. It is a caustic, unsentimental performance that does not pander to the audience, but instead, forces it to experience the weight of what Ludovic has felt and let fester over the years, and to sympathize with his inability to process it, or to reach out for help. Neill never makes the expected move, and he never disappoints. The extras on the DVD include a behind the scenes featurette. Co-writer Matthew Bishop details his true-life inspiration for the story. Director and co-writer Ralph Ziman discusses his vision for bringing it to the screen and using it as the opportunity to look into a person‘s soul. The actors also check in, though it is the look at how the animals, monkeys, elephants, wolves, and both lions and tigers, are integrated into the film. The training pays off in now the elephants truly do seem to be talking to Neill, and the capuchin monkey seems to have genuinely bonded with him, chittering away like an old friend as she scampers over and around him. THE ZOOKEEPER is a haunting film, superbly directed, and filmed with a harsh beauty of colors as bleached as the emotions of the characters. The quiet between explosions, military and emotional, has a savage tension reflecting the times in which it takes place.